Blood Magic and Runes
by Reikie22
Summary: A few weeks after Harry Potter, 'the Boy Who Lived' was dropped of at his Aunts house, he disappeared. Ten years later a girl who is the true 'Harry Potter' appears, knowledgeable in certain areas of magic and isn't willing to become Dumbledore's pawn
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I dont own any copyright material including Harry Potter and his friends/enimies.

underline - thoughts  
><em>underlined italics - non-english speaking<em>

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><p>Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry<br>Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorcerer, Chief. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter,  
>We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.<p>

Yours sincerely,  
>Minerva McGonagall Deputy Headmistress<p>

The person reading this was not, as the letter would have you believe, a boy but rather a girl. The girl in question had raven black hair with red streaks, reached the middle of her back and had odd tufts that stuck out randomly, yet still tidy looking. Her face was heart shaped and still contained baby fat. While ordinarily she could be described as cute, the pout she was currently wearing exaggerated it. As she re-read the introduction, she pouted even more and began to frown, "god you think they would look at birth certificates or something. I can't believe they got my gender wrong!"

Just as she was about to read the letter a third time, she felt a build-up of magic coming from the letter and quickly dropped it only to watch in shock as the letter was floated down to the desk, it was engulfed in blue light and disappeared with a flash; temporarily blinding her. She spent a few minutes blinking, trying to remove the stars and spots from her vision before she looked where the letter should have been. It was only after a few seconds of staring incomprehensively that she realised the letter was a time-delay activated port-key and started to get angry at the obvious kidnapping attempt to get her to the castle. She could even feel the vein in her for-head pulsing she was that pissed. What the hell do those asshats think their doing? That was basically a kidnapping attempt. Stupid, manipulative old bats, I should sue!"

After a few minutes of muttered cursing, she had finally calmed down and got out some paper, ink and her fountain pen and penned a reply to the letter. She then bit her thumb with sharper than normal canines and in blood, drew a pentagram encased in a circle, surrounded by a string of odd symbols. After thoroughly inspecting it to ensure there were no mistakes, she gathered her magic in her hand, placed the letter in the middle of the pentagram and covered it with her magic filled hand channelling the magic into the symbols to activate them. In another flash of light, this time red however with no ill effects, the letter disappeared and the blood vaporised, removing all trace that it was there. She then wrote another letter, but left it on the desk, intending to use it as a fail safe.

Standing up from the desk, she took off the bath robe she was wearing revealing that she was naked underneath. There was also a tribal tattoo that covered the majority of her back, shoulders and went down her legs. While it was extremely unusual for an eleven year old to have a tattoo, the thing that would have commanded everyone's attention, muggle or magical, was that the tattoo was moving, and even changing shape while keeping the tribal theme. After stretching with a contented sigh, she headed to her bathroom for a shower.

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><p>An unknown number of miles away, in the highest room of the tallest tower of a massive castle, an odd assortment of people were gathered wearing even odder clothes, even to Wizarding standards. You could see a middle aged couple with red hair. Wearing a set of frayed robes that were even redder, their was a bald man who looked like he hadn't slept in days, and wore robes that hadn't seemed to have been washed in years. There was also a man in lime green clothes with a bowler hat of the same colour, but the person who sat at the desk they were converging around, had to be the oddest of the lot! He had silver hair and a silver beard that reached his belt, half moon glasses that rested of a crooked nose and a set of red, yellow, blue and fluorescent pink robes that blinded someone every time they looked at them. Mixed there were others who while noticeable, seemed to have some semblance of fashion sense. Most notable of these was Minerva McGonagall, a stern looking witch in normal black robes and her grey hair held in a tight bun.<p>

Suddenly, the red haired woman spoke interrupting the tense silence that was blanketing the room.  
>"For god's sake Albus, what's taking so long? Shouldn't he be here by now?"<br>"Now, now Molly," the now identified Albus Dumbledore spoke, "the port-key activates on a set time after he opens it. It could just be that it hasn't arrived or he is otherwise preoccupied." Just as he said that, he was interrupted from saying anything further by the before mentioned port-key letter arriving, but without the boy they were expecting. Instantly the room erupted in shouting, completely obliterating his half-assed attempt to placate the woman. Ten seconds later, the room was silenced by Dumbledore's wand as it let out several gunshot cracks accompanied by puffs of smoke erupting from the tip.  
>"Now everyone calm down. We can't achieve anything if we don't have a plan, and certainly not if we're divided. Now what we need to ..." This time, he was interrupted mid sentence by the arrival of a glowing blood red pentagram appearing on the middle of the desk. The light coming off it pulsed a few times, before a black liquid bubbled up before solidifying into a adult hand-sized, obsidian coloured reptilian hand which held a letter in it. The whole process lasted several minutes, during which the room had frozen in shock. This shock lasted an aditional two minutes before dumbledore regained his senses and used a couple of detection spells on the arm. Upon coming up clean, he picked up the letter and the arm melted back into the pantafram before all trace of it vanished, an action which seemed to unfreeze the rest of the room. Before he could read the letter, it was enveloped in a golden glow and a monotone voice echoed from every surface in the room.<p>

"Dear Hogwarts headmaster, deputy head and any other idiot in the room right now. I would be glad to attend Hogwarts; however I would like to be notified if you wish to talk to me in future. Also, any repeated attempts to kidnap me and I will take legal action so be warned, I have very good lawyers! Now that that's over, I will be free for an hour at noon a week on Monday, so if you wish to speak to me for what ever reason I will be in the leaky cauldron. If not I will see you on September 1st.

Regards,  
>K. Hailey Potter"<p>

The completion of the letter was met with a shocked silence, which was soon broken by Molly Weasley, "A-A-Albus w-what does it mean?" She stuttered, "What the bloody hell does he think he's playing at? Accusing us of kidnapping! And pretending to be a girl on top of that. Why I oughta," Her voice rising in anger at the disrespect in the letter  
>"Now, now molly, I'm sure that's just young Harry's idea of a joke. I shall meet with him at the specified time and talk with him to get everything sorted out and to ensure his brand of humour isn't appreciated." Albus replied his grandfatherly smile going full blast, "now if that's all then I will have to ask you to leave as I have a few things come up that need attending to. Feel free to use my fireplace to floo home."<br>With that, everyone but Dumbledore got up and went home, most through the fireplace but a few, such as Minerva, walked out the office through the door.

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><p>An hour after she had sent the letter, the now labelled K. Hailey, or rather Kearia as Hailey was simply her middle name, had finished her shower and dressed herself in a black long-sleeved top, a denim miniskirt with shorts underneath and ankle length converse and walked out of the flat she was in, onto the street of Diagon alley. If one were to look back at where she came from, they would find that her apartment was located above a recently opened store, labelled as 'household enchantments'.<p>

It was still early so the streets were empty, and the few shops that were open still had the workers tidying things or were sat at the counter half asleep. The only place which was fully open and ready for business, which was also her destination, was the goblin run bank, 'Gringotts'. She walked past the two guards as she entered and approached the first goblin she saw and bowed,

_"May you form rivers of the blood from your enemies' master teller"_ she greeted the goblin in his own tongue, gobbledegook.  
><em><span>"And may your vaults never empty, what can Gringotts bank do for you today Miss Potter?"<span>_ He replied, only momentarily stunned by the genuine respect in her voice  
>"I wish to speak to my families account manager if he is available." She said, switching back to English.<br>"Of course miss potter, this way please." And with that he led her through a door, down some stairs and through a collection of maze-like corridors. Upon seeing some disorientation rune clusters, she didn't even bother to try to memorise the route they took, knowing it was futile and instead gathered her thoughts of what business she needed conducting to ensure she wasted as little of the goblins time as possible. They got quite annoyed at wizards for that, and why, pray tell; did people think it wise to annoy the ones responsible for keeping your gold safe? While she followed her guide, he was contemplating his current charge, and how if all magical humans treated his fellow goblins with the same respect, there might not have been half as many goblin revolts and wars. Saying that, the goblin thought we do like a bit of bloodshed, so we probably would have started wars just for the hell of it.

After what seemed minutes, but could well have been hours for all she could tell, her goblin guide stopped at a piece of wall before rapping on it twice before pushing it open. Upon seeing Kearia's confused face the goblin chuckled before explaining, "Part of the wards make it impossible for all but Gringotts goblins to tell what is wall and what are doors." He then turned back to the office and said, "Miss potter here to see you Nightclaw." He then bowed to Kearia, who bowed back, and turned and walked back in the direction they came from. She then walked in to the office and held her closed right fist over her heart as she bowed. "Greetings master Nightclaw; it is an honour to meet you." Still holding the bow, she simply raised her head slightly and saw night claw mimicking her bow,

"Greetings miss potter, and it is good to see you again, what may I help you with today?"  
>"A couple of things actually. First, I would like to claim my title as head of the house of potter, take a blood inheritance test and also, gain a copy of the documents for the opening of my trust vault and my ministry birth certificate. Once that is all completed I would like to speak to you about handling some investments for me, and I have an idea that could gain Gringotts more profit."<p>

"Well that is quite the list. And as for your idea, once all of our other business is taken care of we can discuss it and see where it goes from their. Now the easy things first, while we go to the blood inheritance room, I will get you documents sorted and they will be waiting here for our return, we shall wait until the inheritance test for the rest to ensure your eligible for the potter title, possibly others as well. Now if you would please follow me." As he was speaking, he was writing various things down on pieces of parchment, one of which flew out of a hole above the door. When he came to the end of his speech pressed his finger onto a rune carves into his desk, and a panel of the wall behind him slid open. He then walked through it, with Kearia following him. The room was revealed to be a large dome, with a rune covered bowl in the centre, and the three walls that didn't connect to the office were made of some unknown black rock, and were polished to a water-like finish. As they got closer to the bowl, she saw that it contained a shimmering silver liquid.

"Now then," Nightclaw said, regaining her attention, "we have four types of blood inheritance tests, one for a compete copy of your direct ancestry starting from when Gringotts first opened; and includes their magical status, one for any titles and houses you are eligible to claim; whether that is permanent or until you have an eligible child to hand it over to, one for any magical ability you may have and finally one to determine any magic that is affecting you; such as love potions, curses, core bindings and disguises. Each test costs five galleons, which will come from your family account, or the full whammy, which includes all the tests and has a 10% discount."

"I would like the full whammy please, and I will be willing to pay the full price and extra, if Gringotts is willing to forgo recording the results with the ministry."

"That will be fine; however Gringotts will still keep a copy for our records. Now if you will please put your dominate hand over the bowl and slice the pm with the provided knife." Kearia looked down to see a silver medical blade with finely detailed runes inscribed on the handle and blade. As she did what she was told, she saw the liquid rise up and cover her hand in a bubble. It felt oddly dry, she noted, as she felt the liquid draw blood from the wound, which surprisingly didn't hurt. "Huh, must be something to do with runes on the knife"

After about a minute of this, the liquid had a definite red sheen to it and she was beginning to feel faint from blood loss. As the liquid flowed back into the bowl and left her hand, it took all evidence of blood and the wound with it, leaving clear smooth skin in its wake. Seeing that his charge was about to collapse, he rushed up and caught her before handing her a vial. After a quick remark of 'blood replenishing potion' from Nightclaw, she downed it before shutting her eyes. As soon as the potion took effect, she was helped into a sitting position in a chair which came from god knows where.

"Are you feeling ok Miss Potter? Sorry about the dizziness but it doesn't usually take that much blood."  
>"I'm fine now thanks. And don't worry about it. What happens now?"<p>

"Now, we pour a quarter of the liquid into each of the three basins at the base of the black walls, and the final quarter onto this piece of parchment." He said, placing said parchment on the table. "The walls will show the results for you family tree, magical abilities and houses/titles while this parchment will show all, if any, foreign magical entities." As Kearia went to fill the basins for her family tree and abilities, using the pitcher provided, night claw did the remaining two before joining her. When she had finished, Nightclaw pressed a rune on the basin of the magical ability wall and two layers of the wall separated from the main and folded themselves repeatedly before floating down into Nightclaw's hand. He then repeated for the other two walls then walked back to the table. Kearia following him.

"These are your copies," he said handing her three square pieces which were titled, keeping the remaining three. "They will unfold as many times as needed, but not beyond the space coved by writing."

She unfolded the ancestry sheet first. While the results were not to surprising as she had already been briefed about her family tree, there were some surprises. First was that through her parents she was a direct heir to both Godric Grifindore and Rowenna Ravenclaw. The second was that, in green ink which didn't match any of the other lines, was 'Tom Marvolo Riddle, aka Voldemort' who was situated between her parents and the line went all the way to Salazar Slytherin

"This is a surprise," Nightclaw said distracting her from her astonishment, "heir to three Hogwarts founders, even if one is by conquest,"  
>"I'm sorry, but what do you mean by conquest?" she said, puzzlement evident on her face.<p>

"When a direct heir of an ancient and noble line, such as Voldemort of Slytherin, tries to unjustly murder someone, they are temporarily subject to something called Arcane Hereditas. This means that if they are defeated, whether killed or immobilised, they lose all rights to their family line and title, along with all possessions belonging to that family. Then, regardless of any secondary or tertiary heirs, the title and all that goes with it is passed onto the would-be victim; hence succession by conquest. Now, shall we have a look at your abilities?"

Kearia, still dazed from the revelation of being the heir to three founders, simply nodded and unfolded the correct sheet. As she looked down, she saw her abilities displayed as a bullet-pointed list along with a brief description,

**Patronus form: Nibi No Neko - the Patronus spell is a light orientated defence against certain dark aligned creatures, such as Dementias. It can also be used to carry messages. The two tailed cat form gives the additional effect of controlling any nearby un-dead, such as Inferi or summoned skeletons, and can even dispel them back to the afterlife.**

**Animagus form: dark pixie - pixies as a species are quite mischievous and fun loving. A dark pixie has the ability to travel through and hide in shadows.**

**Astral Projection - the ability to expel your soul from your body and travel like a ghost, albeit invisible. You will also be able to possess of soulless bodies as if they were your own, such as vegetation or dead bodies.**

**Beast Tongue - the ability to understand and speak any language after just hearing it once.**

Kearia felt giddy as she read through the list, she couldn't wait to research and practise them. Deciding to think about it later in private she turned to Nightclaw, who was standing there slack jawed. He had never heard of someone having such numerous powerful abilities, she would be a valuable ally to the goblin nation considering her abilities and all she stood to inherit. Seeing his distraction, she coughed to gain his attention.  
>Snapping out of his musings, Nightclaw cleared his thought before detailing the next step,<br>"We had best take this back to my office then so we will have things on hand should we need them."  
>After sitting back at the desk in night claws office, him behind it while Kearia in front, he unfolded the parchment before glancing at it.<p>

**Unknown spell, caster: Lilly potter, status: active - if not renewed within a certain time frame will send out a distress beacon which details the location of spell subject.**

**Mail duplication ward, caster: Albus Dumbledore, status: active - all mail will have a copy sent to caster. Mail from certain magical signatures won't arrive at all.**

**Genetic cancelling ward, caster: Albus Dumbledore, status: broken (magical trace still evident) - will put certain genes into dormant state, used to hide characteristics of ancestry, whether physical traits or abilities. Caster will be able to renew ward unless with physical contact unless it is completely removed.**

**Core binding, caster: Albus Dumbledore, status: active - restricts how much magical energy a person's core can contain. Will not effect the growth of core and upon removing, the free space will be filled with magical energy.**

**Living Horcrux container, soul piece: T.M.R./Voldemort, status: dormant but actively feeding upon host's magical core; one of seven pieces - a Horcrux is a container for a soul piece, granting the user a form of immortality. Requires murder based ritual to make.**

Kearia and Nightclaw were both infuriated at the revealed manipulation attempts on her, but upon reading the Horcrux information, she turned pale white and felt ill. "Oh my god, that monster is in me! Eww get it out, get it out!

Nightclaw, however, turned pale while repeatedly jabbing the emergency alarm rune cluster. Suddenly several armed goblins rushed in, shocking Kearia, before he said in a rush to the new goblins, "we have a code red, get the dark objects team, a team of unspeakables and the director now!" As they rushed off, he turned to the still pale Kearia, "don't worry Miss Potter, we of the goblin nation have dealt with this sort of thing before and can destroy it easily, no threat to you."  
>"B-b-but WH-what about the unspeakables," she stuttered<br>"While we can destroy this one, there are five more pieces and Voldemort himself. Using you, with the unspeakables help we can summon the other five and once they're destroyed Voldemort main soul piece will follow the six from the Horcruxes to the afterlife providing he has no body to inhabit."

Nightclaw then escorted her out his office, all the while keeping a comforting hand on her back and led her into a new room, this one with walls like the blood inheritance room. There were goblins and unspeakables rushing about, drawing runes and casting spells, while an elderly wizard in the garb of an unspeakable, but with his hood down revealing his face, walked up to them.

"Good day miss potter," he said "I know this must be quite worrying for you, but don't worry. The rituals themselves require no input from you except your presence, and once this is all done with there will be no adverse affects to your self. The first ritual will resonate the soul piece in you with the other Horcruxes, allowing us to summon them into these safety containers," he said pointing at some glass cubes on the floor, "next the goblins will transfer the soul pieces, including the one in you, into those pigs in the corner, which they will then kill thus sending the souls, including Voldemort, to the afterlife with no way of returning."

As he was talking, the rest had finished the preparations so he lead her to her position, which was a circle enclosed by runes with five blank squares of floor surrounding her, which the containers were placed on. Everyone got into their required position and channelled their magic into the various nearby rune clusters. One by one the runes that covered the floor lit up with a golden glow, before they were extinguished with a bright flash. The five containers then glowed before five items appeared, one in each container; they were a chalice, a diadem, a ring, a locket and a diary. The resulting expulsion of energy caused several unspeakables to stumble, and Kearia, who was already in shock and distracted with worry due to everything that had discovered in the last hour, wasn't able to brace herself and slumped to the floor as blackness overwhelmed her senses.

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><p>Like it? please review, constructive criticism is welcom but pointless flames will be ignored.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2 updated

Disclaimer: I don't own any copyright material including Harry Potter and his friends/enemies.

Underline - thoughts  
><em><span>underlined italics<span>__ - __non-English speaking_

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><p>As Kearia next became aware of her surroundings, she found herself floating in a dark cavern, with pale blue lines criss-crossing the walls. In the centre of the cavern she noticed a big ball of energy the same colour as the lines, but it seemed to be restricted by two sets of chains. "My magical core.." She thought, but what are the chains then?<p>

The core bindings perhaps, but that would only explain one of them."

As she looked closer, she saw that the two chains were actually different colours. The first one which only covered her core was a sickly green colour and was connected to a much smaller ball of energy which was a green-black colour. The second set was restricting both her core and the foreign core/chain mix, was a red in colour, and she instinctively knew that the red chain was the core binding from Dumbledore, while the green ball/chains must be Voldemort Horcrux. During her inspection of the red chains, she saw cracks in the links and with some mental prodding and pulling, the chains shattered before becoming a white mist and shooting off into her core, making it increase slightly in diameter putting extra strain on the green chains.

Suddenly the green chains started to unravel from her core and return to the main ball, while suddenly she felt a tugging sensation acting on the foreign core, despite its reluctance to leave. Deciding to help out what she assumed to be the goblins attempt to remove the Horcrux, she willed her magical core to become solid and unmovable. She then concentrated her hardest at forcing all foreign presences from her mind, calling upon all her years of Occlumency practice to help her. Finally, after what seemed like hours, a mentally exhausted Kearia watched the Horcrux shoot out of the cavern and her ball of magical energy grow to at least four times its size, filling up most of the cavern space. Before she could further examine it, the tugging sensation on her mind returned, before it pulled out of her mind. Waking up, she saw a female unspeakable kneeling behind her, with Kearia's head resting in her lap as Kearia lay on the ground.

"Welcome back to the land of the waking," she chuckled, "your vitals seem to be fine and while it looks to be exhausted, your magical core has grown even larger than expected. Five minutes rest and a pepper-up potion and you should be jumping around in no time. You'll be pleased to know that the removal of all the soul pieces was successful and Nightclaw wishes to speak to you about the containers as soon as you feel up to it. I have also been requested by my superiors to ask you if you would mind letting us study some of the items, if you gain ownership of them that is, as they have powerful enchantments on, the means of which to produce and replicate have been lost to us for centuries."

"Erm sure..." Kearia replied still tired, "just let me know when you would like them."  
>Half an hour later, Kearia was sat in front of Nightclaw's desk again as she reflected upon everything that happened today. First she had taken a blood inheritance test, three out of four reports she had read through leaving one remaining. From those she had gained a complete copy of her family tree and learned she was related to three founders, though one was through conquest.<p>

Then she had learnt she had several magical abilities, including the rare 'beast speak' and 'astral projection'. They then discovered that first of all she had several detrimental enchantments cast on her, all of which had been removed and secondly she was a Horcrux container! Thankfully that was removed without any negative effects and she found that she felt lighter than she could ever remember feeling, though whether that was down to it being removed or her unrestricted core getting filled she didn't know. They had also decided that with the amount of fan-mail and other possible port-key kidnapping attempts, she would have to hire an elf to check and sort all the mail she was bound to receive.

Now all that was left of the inheritance test was to find out any family title('s) she had claim to, and the possessions and properties those titles granted her. At Nightclaw's prompting, she unfurled the last roll of parchment and they both looked it over.

**Family claims**

**Lady Potter - birthright through blood. Properties include: Potter Manner, 10 Godrics hollow, vaults 713 / 240 / 010. Investments listed in account ledger.**

**Lady Black - blood heir apparent. Properties include: 12 Grimmauld house, vaults 400 / 401. Investments listed in account ledger**

**Lady Ravenclaw - birthright through blood and magic. Properties include 1/4 of Hogwarts grounds, vault 001.**

**Lady Gryffindor - birthright through blood. Properties include 1/4 of Hogwarts grounds, griffon tower (under rune based blood Fideleus).**

**Lady Slytherin - magical heir through conquest. Properties include 1/4 of Hogwarts grounds, various books in Parsletongue: held in trust by the goblin nation, vault 002**

Upon finishing, both Kearia and Nightclaw sat back as they contemplated these latest revelations.  
>"Well then, if there are no objections I shall send a message to get your head of house rings" Nightclaw finally said interrupting the silence.<br>"Yes please, however I have some questions if I may?"  
>"Of course, just let me get your house rings sorted out." He quickly penned out a message and sent it off. "Now what was it you wanted to ask?"<br>"First, for the black family title, what does it mean by blood heir apparent? Secondly as heir to three of the four founders, do I have any responsibilities from it?"

Seeing she had no further questions, Nightclaw gathered some documents into one pile while answering, "for your first question it means that while you claim relation to the black family by blood, you weren't the closest heir by blood, but upon the death of the previous head, Orion Black, he chose you as heir based upon your diseased godfather's will. It was well known that Orion hated death eaters, and in his will he chose to follow his son's wishes, as he was still alive at the time, as he was thankful that you vanquished Voldemort. For your second question, we know you will have some measure of control over the wards of Hogwarts, and its rules and regulations. Hogwarts is sentient, however and I imagine it will contact you for further information upon entering its grounds. Now if that's all your questions dealt with?"

"Yes, for now thanks," she said giving him a brief nod.  
>Before he could say more, a goblin entered the room, carrying a box and placed upon the desk before walking out the room. Nightclaw opened it up and turned it round,<p>

"These are your family rings; they are to be placed on your ring finger on your left hand where they will merge. Only one ring will be seen at a time, unless you will it otherwise, so you will have to choose what ring is show as required. I would suggest you show the Potter ring as the standard as that is the only one people expect you stand to inherit. Next on our agenda is the matter of the ex-Horcruxes. One of them was a diary that belonged to Voldemort in his Hogwarts years; as it is now useless we sent it back to original hiding spot. Three of them are family heirlooms from Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Peveral, which later became Potter, and are yours to decide what to do with. The last one, while not yours, is an heirloom of the remaining founder of Hogwarts, Helga Hufflepuff. It is to be held in trust by your family, as the first uncovered founders heir, until you or one of your heirs meet and have the opportunity to return it to the Hufflepuff heir.

"For now, the items have been placed in your family vault and I would suggest taking a few days of to relax and think before deciding what to do with them. I shall enquire about the books left in trust and will move them to the Slytherin vault for you. Usually, only a Parslemouth would be able to understand books written in Parsletongue, but the head of house ring allows you to translate it anyway. Now, unless there is anything else you can think of?" Seeing her shake her head, Nightclaw continued "all that's left is to sign your emancipation forms, which we will then sort out and send them to the correct ministry departments to ensure it is iron-clad and not even the head of the Wizengamot will be able do anything about it. Don't worry," he said quickly upon seeing her worried face, "this happens so rarely that they won't be bothered to check their records until someone enquires about your status; by then the standard week for objections would have passed and not even the joint forces of the entire Wizengamot and ministry can legally overturn it. The only ones who know enough about you to object is certain Gringotts goblins and the unspeakables here today. You have no fear of your secret being leaked however as all those who know have been vowed to silence until you yourself announce the details. Finally, to finish off with you have your idea to explain."

Kearia, satisfied with his explanation, spent the next twenty minutes reading through the various forms and signing in the appropriate places. When she had finished, she traced an intricate pattern in the air above the forms, causing the room to be engulfed in a flash of blue light upon finishing, causing its occupants to blink furiously as they tried to clear their vision.

"My apologies Nightclaw, however it was necessary to ensure my privacy." At his alarmed look she smiled softly before putting his fears to rest, "don't worry, it's just rune based Fideleus charm so only the initial of my first name will be known to wizards. It doesn't affect goblins, but it ensures I can't be entered into a magical contract unless I sign it myself under my own free will. Even those who know my first name can't write it down as that counts as 'sharing the secret'. Those who weren't told of my first name by me, won't be able to hear it from someone else, even if the person that knows it is shouting it down the ear of someone who doesn't." seeing Nightclaw relax, she unconsciously relaxed as well. It never bode well for those that made a goblin tense in worry, mistrust or anger. "As for my idea," she started, prompting Nightclaw who had got out a notebook and pen, prepared to take notes "it's actually a Muggle idea so you may have to research it more. The basic idea is that there a special card that is linked to a person's vault which can be used as payment in the place of gold. The advantages for the goblin nation is that one: you can charge transaction fees, two: you won't have to deal with them all the time as they won't need to continuously go to their vault to draw out money and three: if the vault it is connected to runs out of gold, you can set an overdraft amount with interest rates and it will be up to them to keep track of the remaining gold in their vaults so you won't be held responsible for them getting into debt."

Throughout the explanation, night claws expression had steadily gone from polite, feigned interest to genuine interest and glee. The last points, however, made his face morph into bloodthirsty excitement, all the while he was continuously writing notes in his notebook both, what Kearia told him and his personal ideas on how to improve it. "Well it is certainly worth looking into, if this idea is implemented what is it you want in payment?"

"Nothing much actually. But would it be possible for me to be exempt of the transaction fees? And I would think it best if I leave my investments until I've had a chance to look through my different ledgers."

"Of course, the goblin council should be happy to wave the fees for you. Now if that is all, I think I'll be busy for a while with all that's happened today. Here are the documents your requested earlier" He said handing over the various identity forms before he stood up and bowed, which Kearia mimicked, before opening the door and leading her back to the front door of the lobby. "I will be in contact with your account ledgers and anything else that comes up shortly. May your gold reserves never empty." He said, bowing again  
>"And may you crush your enemies without mercy" she replied, returning the bow.<p>

As she left Gringotts she was overwhelmed by the noise coming from the everyday hustle of the alley. It was a huge contrast to the calm, quiet bank she just left. She pulled out the list of equipment which accompanied the kidnapping device, ¤cough Hogwarts acceptance letter cough¤, as she pushed and dodged her way through the crowd. After scanning it a couple of times she decided it would probably be best to get her wand first so she could use some of the basic spells her grandparents had taught her to make shopping easier.

While most people, light or dark, got their first wands from Ollivanders as they believed he sold the best in Britain, Kearia wasn't as stupid, she knew his weren't the best. First was the fact that all of Ollivander's wands were pre-made; this meant that 99.9% of the time your wand wasn't fully matched and bonded to you, which made it harder to use it; as it wasn't completely bonded to you, it also allowed other people to use your wand should they pick it up or take it off you.

Another reason against Ollivanders was that he put the magical trace on all of his wands which while encouraged by the ministry, wasn't required by law to do so. That meant if she got one of his wands she would have to apply at the ministry to get it removed. That would announce to everyone in the Wizarding world and their goat, 'Harry Potter the boy-who-lived' was female and had taken up the mantle as the head of the Potter house. While she was intending to let the public know, she wanted to wait until she was at Hogwarts so she could control the fallout. She also didn't want to advertise to everyone that she was exempt from the under-age magical restriction. Fortunately, she knew of another wand maker, located in Knockturn alley, which negated all of the problems you would get with Ollivanders. They even looked better too. Without even realising it, her feet had led her to the required shop while she had been lost in thought. "Lucky," she thought, "I could have walked anywhere or knocked into someone."

"Welcome to Brad's wands," a voice called out as she entered, "how may I serve you today?" she looked around surprised, he knew her so why was he acting like she was new to the shop? As she finally spotted Brad sitting at the counter, focussed on his paper she chuckled. She took a few moments to study him before speaking out as once again he had changed his hair, the only part of him visible; currently it was jet black with red highlights in the shape of a traditional Japanese dragon.

"Hello again, Brad. I like the new hair." Instantly, his face snapped up, showing a tanned, middle aged face before his face lit up in a smile that seemed to melt years off his age.  
>"Welcome back missy. Finally starting Hogwarts I take it?"<br>"Yeah now would you finally tell me how you change your hair so much in such a short time?"  
>"Of course" he chuckled, "but you'll have to tell me your name first." That was a running gag between them ever since their rocky start five years ago when she first wandered into his shop and bugged him endlessly for a wand. He would change his hair style in between her visits, even when they were only minutes apart. She would then ask how he did it, and he would challenge her by asking her name first, but always rejected her ideas of glammer charms or Muggle hair dye.<p>

"Oh if I must," she sighed," but I'll need an oath of silence until the second day of Hogwarts." He did so and satisfied with the accompanying blue flash, leaned closer to whisper in his ear, "Kearia Hailey Potter, the so called 'boy who lived.'" As she leaned back, she giggled upon seeing his dumbstruck face; a face that despite all previous attempts, she never caused him to take. As his eyes turned disbelieving, she slid across her ministry birth certificate for him to study.

"Merlin," he whispered, looking back to her face, "how the bloody hell did Albus mistake you for a boy? The whole Wizarding word is going to be in outrage when this comes out. I can already hear the purebloods and ministry calling for his blood." He soon got over his shock, though he kept a small grin, which Kearia mirrored "now then, you've seen me work enough now to know the drill; hand in potion." As she walked up to a cauldron and stuck her hand in it, Brad had tapped a rune with his wand and one of the walls faded away, revealing huge shelves; each one containing varying quantities of thousands of different types of wood and bone. "Gotta love space manipulation runes. One day you're going to have to teach me how to draw them so I can make adjustments to the place."

"One day," she giggled as she joined him. She lifted the potion covered hand, watching as several materials glowed before two shot out and smacked into her hand, hard enough to sting.

"Black rose and yew, interesting combination." He said naming the two woods; one black, one white respectively. "Promotes both light and dark natured spells. Now dip your hand in the potion again" he took the woods off her, placing them on the counter before tapping a second rune. The room shimmered momentarily and looked exactly the same, apart from the fact the wood and bone had been replaced with core materials. "While Ollivanders limits himself to magical creatures, and so few at that, my core materials include anything magical that acts as a focus, whether the Ministry deem it legal or not." Kearia repeated her actions with the wood and like the wood, multiple materials glowed. This time, unlike with the wood, three materials flew into her outstretched hand, softly this time. The materials were: a vial filled with silver liquid, a small plastic bag filled with a grey powder and lump of some sort of plant.

"Unicorn Blood, willingly gifted excellent for light orientated magic; ash of a Dark Phoenix, perfect for dark orientated magic and finally the heart-root of the rare Dragontoungue vine, the ultimate stabiliser. I must say, judging by your wand materials you'll be neither light nor dark but a perfect balance of both. Grey if you will, it shouldn't take me to long to prepare, why don't you take a seat and ponder my hair changing ability while I make your wand." And with that he disappeared behind a door, as the room containing the core materials shimmered out of existence leaving the wall behind.

Kearia spent the thirty minute wait deliberating on what runes to carve into her wand. As Brad walked back into the room she had finally decided upon an unbreakable charm, a return summoning charm and a low powered lightning hex, a little surprise for anyone unauthorised who decided to touch it; while it wouldn't kill them it certainly would knock them out. So lost in her ideas, she missed Brads several attempts of gaining her attention. Finally he just bonked her on the head, ignoring her mutter complaints as she rubbed her head, and opened up the 4" by 7" box, to reveal her wand resting on a velvet cushion. The wand itself was beautiful, it was 6 1/2", with the handle being twisted perfectly into a spiral with grooves for finger holds. As the spiral of the handle ended, the colour of the two woods extended into a perfect spiral to the tip of the wand in a dizzying pattern of black and white while remaining a smooth cylinder. The world seemed to slow to a crawl as she picked it up, and her breath hitched at the felling of warmth that crawled up her arm, accompanied by the light show of white and black stars that erupted from her wand, swirling around the two of them before merging into a background glow of grey. Mesmerised as she was by the sight of it, she missed Brad chuckle and comment of "definitely grey."

Finally, the light show ended and Kearia reluctantly brought her attention to Brad. "Now then, you owe me an answer."  
>"He he I guess I do. I'm a Metamorphagus, although I try to limit myself to only do minor changes, such as my hair and eye colour. Anything more than that and it really screws up my balance." At this answer, Kearia smacked her hands to her face before dragging them down. <span>"How on earth did I not think of that? Wait a minute that answer was obvious yet I didn't think of it, I bet the bastard hid it under Fideleus."<span>

Seeing her look of realisation, brad chuckled "figured it out have you? Anyways, it will be forty galleons for the wand and I'll throw in a special wand holster free. It's made from dragon hide, Hungarian Horntail to be exact; it is warded to be disillusioned when your wand is placed in it and is charmed against summoning. It also has a diamond flaked Kevlar wire which attaches to your wand; that way you can't lose it in a fight, and will easily be able to retrieve it if someone disarms you."

Kearia smiled and dug out the required galleons from her moleskin purse before putting her wand holster on, placed her wand in it and walked out, a promise to visit in a few days thrown over her shoulders. After her wand, she thought a trunk was the next most important as it was needed to hold her purchases, and went to the next store to get her desired trunk.

Albus was getting annoyed as he sat in the corner of the leaky cauldron. He had been sat here for five bloody minutes and the little shit had the gall to keep him waiting! Did he not realise who he was? Despite his displeasure, he conveniently ignored the clock on the wall showing the time to be 11:50, ten minutes before the specified meeting time. Finally a hooded figure arrived and sat down, placing a rune stone on the table.

"Notice-me-not ward" the figure spoke, keeping their hood up. "I thought this conversation would be better kept private."  
>"Harry Potter I assume," Dumbledore said, instantly hiding his aggravation and putting his grandfatherly mask on, "I'm here to take you to Hogwarts as your magical guardian while we get the wards at your aunt's house sorted out. It is the safest place for you there after all."<p>

"You must be mistaken," the figure spoke, their voice distorted sounding neither male, female, old nor young. "I am **Miss** Potter's representative as she is currently busy attending other business. Also, you appointed yourself as magical guardian illegally, completely ignoring her parents wills, therefore it was not required to tell you when her true magical guardian took over from you, which explains why you think you still have power over her, and no I am not her magical guardian. However, that also means that your unwanted attempt to bring her to the castle was illegal, and is classified as attempted kidnapping." Albus turned white at this,

"You must realise for her safety and the greater good I need to be her magical guardian, and she needs to be disguised as a boy. It is too dangerous for to be known as a girl." He said, eyes twinkling furiously

"For your safety you mean, when she announces her gender, you will be the one the Wizarding world turns it ire to. And to remove her magical guardian, you have to prove they are unsuitable and gain a majority vote from the Wizengamot. Though I don't think it will do you much good since you as the head of the Wizengamot at the time illegally declared yourself her magical guardian, and the members did nothing to stop or even question you I doubt magic will allow you to become her guardian again." Although the person's face was covered, Albus could Clearly sense the amusement on their face. "And for the greater good? Who are you to decide the greater good? Your only achievement was the defeat of Grindalwald, and even that was pathetic as you dilly-dallied so much that thousands died needlessly; that war lasted years too long, years you didn't bother to do anything. Their blood is on your hands Dumbledore."

"That snarky shit, how dare he question me! I must find out who he is so I can show **Mr.** Potter how dark he is, then maybe the lad will listen me like good little tool he should be." "Well, then, you must busy so I'll leave you to it. I myself have several important matters to attend to." Albus said, getting up and putting his cloak on. "Please tell **Mr.** Potter I will see him on September 1st."

The figure just sat there, watching as Dumbledore got up and walked away, mumbling about 'becoming Harry's mentor for the greater good'. As he left the wards boundary, the figure sighed before removing the hood to reveal that it was Kearia all along. "This complicates things," she mumbled, pulling out a letter. "If he's this insistent about me being male I dread to think what he'll try at Hogwarts. Better go with plan B." She was surprised when a figure sat down at her table, despite the ward, but relaxed when it turned out to be her account manager.  
>"Master Nightclaw, it's good to see you again. What do you have for me?"<br>"Miss Potter." He nodded in greeting, "unfortunately the results of our last meeting have uncovered some irregularities. Fortunately they can be easily and quickly solved."  
>"What sort of irregularities?" She asked growing concerned.<br>"Don't worry, like I said it is easily solved but it would be better dealt with in privacy."  
>"Of course, just let me send of this letter first." With that they both stood up, and after deactivating and pocketing the warding stone, Kearia paid Tom for the use of an owl, and sent of the letter addressed 'Rita Skeeta, The Daily Prophet' before joining Nightclaw on his way out of the bar.<p>

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><p>Like it? please review, constructive criticism is welcome but pointless flames will be ignored.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I dont own any copyright material including Harry Potter and his friends/enimies.

underline - thoughts  
><em><span>underlined italics - non-english speaking<span>  
>italics - reading letters, books ect<br>_

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><p>"Now then," Nightclaw said after they had both sat down in his office, "the first thing we found was that your will had been sealed; only to be released until either your seventeenth birthday or an executer comes forward. Fortunately, with your emancipation, subsequently becoming head of house potter you can act as executer which allowed us to gain access to the original copies from your family vault." He then slid across two sealed envelopes, one with 'James potter' written on it and the other 'Lily potter nee evens'.<p>

_I James potter, being sound of mind and body, do hereby declare this my last will and testament. _

_I James potter do declare that a sum of fifty thousand galleons is to go to the following: - Sirius black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew. The rest of my estate is to be passed to my daughter Kearia potter, to be held in trust by my wife Lily potter nee Evans until the time she thinks it appropriate. _

_If upon both mine and Lily's death, Kearia is to go into the care of the following: - Sirius Black, her godfather; Alice Longbottom, her godmother; Minerva McGonagall, a close family friend. Should all those be unavailable she is to be placed in the care of Hogwarts._

"As you can see, there are several requests that cannot be carried out, but you may carry out the request for one Remus Lupin."

"I'm sorry but who is he? I've never heard of him before, let alone met him." She said looking puzzled

"We believe he was a close friend of your father. We would have thought he would have at least tried to visit you." Shrugging, Kearia opened her mother's will and began to read it.

_I Lily potter nee Evans, being sound of mind and body, do hereby declare this my last will and testimony. First, should I have died after my husband, then as mistress of the estate I declare his will null and void._

Here, Kearia looked up at Nightclaw as he answered the unanswered question plastered on her face,

"Yes, records show that your mother died twenty minutes after your father. Should we invalidate his will? You still gain the potter estate and all its possessions and titles as the last living blood heir." Seeing her nod, he wrote a quick note, sticking it in her dads will before stamping 'VOID' across the will and putting it in a pile, Kearia however carried on reading her mums will.

_Now that's over and done with, since both my husband and myself are dead, Kearia is to be placed in the guardianship of my birth parents, and she is to be emancipated on her eleventh birthday. She is to also gain my personal vault, which is under my maiden name, and my apartment in New York. As soon as you have read this Kearia, go straight to my vault and read the letter waiting there; it will explain everything._

"Well then Miss Potter, do you want to sort out our other bit of business first, or go to your mothers vault?"

"I would deal with the other pieces of business first please," she finally said, looking up from her mums will.

"Very well, first is that there have been several illegal withdrawals from the potter vaults, both money and heirlooms. They were covered up by a lower level goblin, which has since been interrogated and executed. The money was easy to reclaim but the heirlooms are slightly more difficult. Fortunately the potter family has always had close relations with Gringotts and four generations ago, we added a security feature to their possessions in return for them sharing several of their runic formulae. Unless the possession in question was legally sold or gifted with both the knowledge and express permission of the potter family head, Gringotts is able to summon any individual and all belongings of the potter family not already stored in your vaults."

"What about possessions in the family houses and can they be taken from them, also what's required to retrieve my stolen possessions?"

"We can pick and choose what to retrieve after we have compiled a list of the locations of each possession. The potter estates, baring the cottage in Godrics hollow, have been on lockdown since your parents went into hiding, and only a potter by blood can gain entrance. What we require from you is an imprint of you blood and magic signature so we can echo the signatures of the possessions to find their current location. To do that, you puts place your right hand here," he pulled out a 15" by 15" by 5" block of silver with a hand shaped grove engraved into it. As Kearia did that, she felt a slight stinging in her fingers, thumb and lower palm, before the block began pulsing with a blue light before releasing it, allowing the light spreading out in a perfect sphere, and leaving the room while continuing outwards.

"The results will be ready soon Miss potter. While we wait is there anything you require?"

Kearia sat there thinking, before sitting up straight, her business face on. "Is that the only copy of my mum's will?" Seeing his affirmative nod she smiled before continuing, "As it has been carried out already, I would like it to be destroyed so that certain old gits waste resources trying to find it or its specifics once it is known that my fathers will was legally negated by my mothers." Nightclaw smirked at this, a knowing glint in his eyes before his hand was engulfed in black fire which he then placed on the will, removing all trace and hope of repairing it.

"As Dumbledore will undoubtedly attempt to use this against you, as account manager of the potter family, I am a valid witness to the contents of your mothers will. As my duty is to put your secrecy first and foremost, I will not be required to reveal the contents, only that the will was fully carried out."

After making some idle talk about what they thought would be the best legal, but discrete, way to humiliate some arrogant, inbred purebloods to pass the time, a piece of parchment appeared on the desk. After reading it through, Nightclaw smiled and said,

"It would seem that the majority of the various possessions taken from both your vault and parents safe-house is currently located in various places in Hogwarts, but most notably the headmaster's office. I shall recall them for you and they shall be placed in labelled boxes in your main family vault. Due to the illegal withdrawals, all your vaults have also had several extra protections added to them, including a blood and magical lock so only you and whoever you add can access them; currently I am on the access list due to my position as account manager, but only me. You may choose to remove me if you wish, however I would not recommend it though as I will need to access your vaults to transfer funds to and from your various vaults as the various situations call for it."

"Thank you. Would I be possible for me to visit my mother's vault first while my stolen possessions are recalled?" she asked.

"Of course, just let me get the process started and we can be off."

While Kearia got up and waited by the door, Nightclaw had gone into the backroom while he recalled her belongings from Hogwarts. After he had finished, he lead her out of his office and to the carts. Then they spent the next ten minutes hurtling down the tunnels, swerving left and right around the various bends. Suddenly, the cart screeched to a halt next to a row of vaults. "Vault 74, high security. You will need to give a blood sample before I can unlock it." Nightclaw explained. After the vault had finally been unlocked and opened, Kearia entered her vault while Nightclaw remained waiting outside as was Gringotts policy to further ensure their clients privacy. The first thing she saw when she walked in was a pile of boxes and trunks scattered around the room, and in the middle was a pedestal with a letter resting on it. Deciding to read the letter before exploring the various trunks, she picked it up and opened it before reading it.

_Dear Kearia, should you be reading this then my fear was realised and we were betrayed before we were killed. Before I tell you about that, just know that I love you very much and would be willing to sacrifice myself a thousand times over if it meant your safety and survival. Now you may be wondering about the trunks and boxes, the answer is that after I graduated Hogwarts I was recruited by the DOM as an unspeakable. My job was to research and develop various forms of magic with my primary being charms, these trunks and boxes show the fruits of my research. However in the green trunk, I have various message crystals that will explain everything in much greater detail; I would suggest taking only that one for now and coming back for the others when you need them. Finally, when you were born I tested you and found you had an ability called astral projection. I spent many months researching this ability but unfortunately I could not find many details about it, only vague references. The reason for this is that a hundred years ago the ministry ladled this as a dark art when they banned all forms of soul magic and made it illegal; because of this I believe that only the darker families would have kept any copies of the books they may have of it. Luckily I was able to find some spells and rituals that aid your ability and they are clearly labelled in the green trunk. Just know that whatever happens I will always love you and my biggest regret is that I won't see you grow up. Lots of love, your mother lily xxx_

Kearia was silently crying by the time she had finished reading, though it was made difficult by her body trembling. After a few minutes she had calmed down enough to be able to re-read the letter, but this time as she went through it she felt only determination; she would make her mum proud by learning and even further developing her research. Without even glancing at the others, she shrunk the green trunk, put it in her pocket and walked out of the vault and straight into the cart; thankfully Nightclaw chose to ignore her sign of weakness, simply offering his silent support.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, all over Hogwarts various items were popping out of existence, leaving only calling cards behind. A few such items to be taken was the majority of the private library in the headmasters office; shelves full of silver objects, all releasing some sort of smoke or sound; and last to be taken from the office was a glass bowl which had every available surface covered in runes and was currently filled with sherbet lemons. Oblivious to this, Albus Dumbledore sat on his golden throne, watching the other members of staff eat. He was currently focussed on his potions master, and using the glasses special functions, was looking at him through the clothes, using all his practice with Occlumency to keep his face looking neutral, though a small hint of a blush was still able to slip through. Albus returned his attention to the rest of the staff, turning of the x-ray feature before he was subjected to the sights beneath the younger witches' robe. He was about to start the after-dinner meeting, when the chair he was sitting on puffed away, leaving him in mid-air half a metre of the ground. The sudden shock of it left everyone unable to move, causing Albus to fall heavily on his back. The rest of the table was snapped out of their shock when his glasses popped away as well, leaving a card in its wake. As one, they rushed to the headmaster's side but Fillius Flitwick, seeing the Gringotts symbol on the card, picked it up and read it.<p>

"Dear gods Albus," he said, "what on earth have you done?"

"Excuse me Fillius," Minerva snapped at him, struggling to get Albus to his feet, "I don't see how the headmaster can be responsible for this prank against him." The tiny quarter goblin just sighed and shook his head sadly,

"This isn't a prank Minerva. The items were retrieved by the goblin nation on the grounds of being illegally taken. Should the owner wish it they could take all of album's vaults as compensation. Here look." Minerva paled as she looked at the card he handed over; then turned bright red as she turned her anger to the headmaster.

* * *

><p>Nightclaw, seeing her silent tears, didn't comment and simply closed the vault and joined her in the cart before sending it hurtling through the maze again. The journey didn't last half as long this time, stopping next to a massive vault door, which had a huge coat of arms that matched her potter family ring.<p>

"The potter family vault" Nightclaw announced, "same process as before except you will also need to press your head of house ring in the indent on the handle." As the vault was unlocked and opened, a grey film covered the doorway causing Kearia to stop and examine it curiously.

"What does the film do, is it a security measure?"

"Indeed Miss Potter," he answered, "however this is used only when vaults are put on lockdown, which was initiated upon discovering the illegal withdrawals and unfortunately it will remain until all the safety protocols have been completed. You may look around but the barrier stops all wizard magic from working in there, and will stop all items in the vault from leaving. Should you stop touching something that you bring in at any time, such as your wand, it will be subject to the barrier and you will have to wait until the vault comes off of lockdown before you can retrieve it."

Kearia hummed in acknowledgment as she walked in, shivering slightly as she went through the barrier; it felt like she had been doused in icy water. As she looked around, she saw shelves full of different items, a wall full of every kind of weapon you could think of and finaly, piles of Galleons, Sickles, Knuts and some weird bars, around the size of an average Honeydukes bar of chocolate. Her attention was captured by an area on the left of the room that had items popping in, and shrinking before arranging themselves on one of the trunks there. The area the trunks were in was surrounded by a glowing blue line, with a blue film extending up to the ceiling. In front of the trunks, outside of the line, was a pedestal with an old, leather bound book on top, which she discovered listed all the items in the trunks, what they do and where they were retrieved from. One thing she noticed was that 90% of them were rune enchanted objects, such as the pensieve or the bowl that actually created real duplicates of whatever item was placed in it, ignoring all the rules about conjuration and transfiguration.

After a couple of hours of looking through the book; then when the retrieval process finished, playing with the various things, she had sated her curiosity and left her vault, this time she felt warm upon passing through the barrier. Apologising to Nightclaw for taking so long they got in the cart, hurtling through the maze as the returned to the surface, and subsequently Nightclaw office. Upon sitting at his desk, Kearia noticed that there were five leather bound books, two considerably thicker, which Nightclaw identified as her account ledgers. Reading through the founders first, she noticed that the Gryffindor and Slytherin vaults had a bit of gold, but apart from the parsletongue books, they contained weapons and enchanted items, although it seemed the Slytherin vault had some eggs of an unidentified animal. The Ravenclaw vault, however, had medium sized pile of gold, but a massive collection of books. The ledger even said that the vault had a charm on it so it automatically bought or made a copy of any non-family specific book. They also showed that the ministry paid a yearly rental fee into the founders' vaults for the privilege of Hogwarts teaching any citizen of magical Britain without prejudice rather than them picking and choosing. The potter and black family legers, however, showed large amounts of gold in each, and a yearly income of at least 170 galleons in investments. The potter investments were only 10% maximum of a company, but spread out into many business, even successful ones in the smuggle world. The blacks however, had controlling shares in many shops in knock turn alley, including a magical creature shop that was popular with even some of the light orientated families. Another thing that the black family ledgers contained were the different marriage contracts that had been carried out and still pending, for the last four hundred years. There were also some contracts that seemed to have been broken, such contract was for Narcissa and luscious Malfoy, the broken terms being that if they didn't produce a son to take the black name within five years of marriage, it was eligible for the head of house black to dissolve the marriage taking half of the Malfoy gold and investments. There were also irregularities with the Lestrange contract, but that would need investigating as it wasn't as straight forward.

"Nightclaw, can you see any legal problems should I dissolve this marriage?"

He took the copy of the contract a scanned it for several seconds, picking out all the details, before grinning and handing it back to her, "no miss potter there won't, however you will have to take Narcissa back into the family and provide for her so I would ensure to find out if she wants it or not so you can make preparations; this will also allow you to know if it is worth it, or if she would resent, and later betray you for it.. Would you like for me to set up a meeting for you?"

"Please. However could you please make it at 13:00 on three days, also make sure she knows its black family business and private so only she will be allowed to the meeting."

"Of course miss potter. Now is that all for today?"

Kearia looked at her watch briefly before replying, "Actually there's one more thing but I'll need to be quick, I have a meeting in twenty minutes. What I would like is for the potter vaults to buy 49% of the shares in the following smuggle companies: Microsoft, Apple, Virgin and blackberry. They're still new and fairly small but a friend of mine has a minor seer talent, and has predicted they'll soon be multi-million pound businesses with enough initial funding."

Hearing this, Nightclaw started writing notes rapidly, a greedy glint in his eyes. If karma's friend was right, the consultant and investment management fees will earn both him and Gringotts thousands a month, add that to the fact that Kearia actually respected goblins and he had to be the luckiest account manager since Glandrot the gory who had managed the Le'fay family accounts before it died out some hundred years ago. He was so engrossed in his work, he barely heard Kearia's amused goodbyes, and didn't even realise when he subconsciously returned them.

Kearia chuckled as she left Nightclaw office; if her news on those companies got that sort of reaction, she wouldn't be surprised if Gringotts bought some shares in those companies for themselves, hell Nightclaw barely noticed me leave. While she was lost in her thoughts, she had walked back to the leaky cauldron and had even opened the wall before she came back to reality. "Dam, I've got to stop doing that!" She shook her head and entered the pub, smiling when she saw the anxious, fidgeting form of the warding worlds most dedicated reporter, Rita Skeeter.

* * *

><p>While Kearia was about to start her meeting with the reporter, miles away Gringotts fastest and most trusted owl had just arrived at Malfoy manor, interrupting the family's starter course of their evening meal. In then further surprised the three when instead of going over to Lucius, it went to his wife Narcissa; snapping at Lucius's fingers when he tried to take the letter, both from the owl and his wife. Perplexed, Narcissa opened the letter only to grow more confused as she read it.<p>

_Dear Mrs Narcissa Malfoy nee Black, the new head of house black has recently taken up mantle and wishes to speak to you regarding black family matters. In light of this a meeting has been set up at 13:00 on the 25th of July in Gringotts. Upon arrival simply announce yourself to an available teller and he will guide you to the meeting. Please note that this is about family matters so only you will be welcome and anyone else arriving with you will be denied access._

_Nightclaw, _

_Black family account manager._

"Well, what does it say?" Lucius demanded. It was obvious by his red face that he was outraged he didn't get to read the letter. Narcissa, instead of answering simply wrote her conformation that she would be there on the back of the note before giving it back to the owl, all the while trying not to laugh at her husband's face. "Dammit answer me woman!" He raged

"Calm down dear," she said, inwardly cringing at the endearment, "it was notification of a meeting with the new head of house black regarding some family matters. With that she went back to her meal, ignoring her husband's angry mutters at how someone claimed the title before his son.

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><p>Back in the leaky cauldron, Kearia had brought out the ward stone again and activated it as she sat down and placed it on the table. "Don't worry Miss Skeeter," she said when she saw Rita's worried face, "it's simply a portable notice-me-not and silencing ward. I thought it best if our meeting was kept private."<p>

"Of course, now I assume you're the contact that has the information on the lost Mr Potter? The letter said it was guaranteed a front page article."

"Yes I am, and I've been doing some thinking since I wrote that letter; I have come to the conclusion that if you split up the information into several interviews and write it the right way, you can stretch this over at least six editions all front page. All I require is a magical oath to not start publishing or even letting others in on this until after the Hogwarts express has left on September 1st."

"That's fine dearie. The wait is a little bit disappointing but I can use this time to plan it perfectly. Oh the opportunities, I'll get an award for sure." She then got out her wand. Tip touching her heart before making her oath, "I, Rita Skeeter, do hereby swear upon my life and magic that I will not publish any of the information I am about to be told, or information I may find myself that is related to it, until the Hogwarts express has left on September 1st and I will not show, tell or in any other way notify someone else of my research and what I was told with this story. So mote be it."

Satisfied with the oath, and the blue flash to signify its completion, Kearia got out the identity documents Nightclaw had provided her, and keeping a straight face as not to show the mirth she felt, placed them on the table facing Rita and said, "hello, allow me to introduce myself, I am K***** Hailey potter, the truth behind the so called 'boy who lived'" her first name being muffled by the magical ward she placed upon it.

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><p>Like it? please review, constructive criticism is welcome but pointless flames will be ignored.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I dont own any copyright material including Harry Potter and his friends/enemies.

underline - thoughts

_underlined italics - non-english speaking_

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><p>Okay note time; first I realise I forgot to post the review replies in the last chapter so they will be combined in this one. Second as an apology for forgetting it, and for taking so long in updating I have written a little omake which can be found at the bottom, tell me what you think.<p>

Also after reading through the first chapters of this fic I discovered that chapter two had part of the beginning cut off so I will be replacing that chapter with the full one; it won't make to much difference over all but it will explain what I am actually talking about in the beginning there.

Finally, as there is a problem with my laptop I am currently working off 'docs to go' on my BlackBerry PlayBook and the dictionary/spell check isn't the best so please bear with me.

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><p>Kearia chewed on her lip absentmindedly as she focused on the potion brewing in front of her. She was currently on her second attempt after the disastrous and embarrassing, yet harmless failure the day before. It wasn't like the potion she was attempting was incredibly difficult or complicated, in fact it was quite the opposite; so easy a first year student could probably brew it with ease on their first attempt. No, the problem was that for every potion she ever tried to make, even those simple, first year grade ones her grandparents tried to teach her, something happened that distracted her, in turn causing her to mess up the potion to be. It didn't even matter how easycomplicated or how much/little time it took to brew, something happened and eventually her grandparents decided enough was enough and banned her from attempting to make anymore. Her failures weren't exactly dangerous; no fiery explosions, no acidic substances melting the floor and definitely no flying shrapnel. No, the reason why she was given a ban was because every attempt and therefore failure always resulted with anyone in the blast perimeter, which happened to be the entire room the potion was brewed in regardless of size, to turn entirely a different colour for at least two days before it wore off.

Take yesterday for example, when she was surprised by the Gringotts mail owl alerting her of. It's presence she accidently added just a tad to much dragon blood, causing an explosion that turned the entire room, and everything in it, a bright shade of fluorescent pink. Luckily she was able to dive out the room in time, unluckily though the owl didn't. She really didn't want to go see the goblins in charge of post anytime soon, but unfortunately she had to visit Gringotts as she had a meeting with Narcissa at Gringotts in a few hours, hopefully Nightclaw either found it amusing or wouldn't be informed.

She was brought out of her thoughts as the potion started hissing, the indicator that it was time to move onto the final step; take it off the flames and then add the last ingredient while stirring steadily as the potion cooled. Quickly, she tapped a rune carved into the floor with her wand and began stirring as she sprinkled in the last ingredient; a few grams of some fiery red coloured crystals which surprisingly, was fairly hot to the touch. She had absolutely no idea what the ingredient was, nor what animal/plant it came from but it was supplied along with the instructions to make the potion; though she had no idea what the potion was for either, just that she needed to take it before she could access the next set of memory spheres; a glass ball containing a collection of memories and once activated, played the memory much like a pensieve.

As she stirred, letting the potion cool down to drinking temperature, she thought back on the first time she opened the green trunk she had retrieved from her mothers vault. It had tuned out to be a multi-compartment trunk, and contained twenty different compartments, each with multiple rows of shelves containing various different sized drawers. So far, the two drawers she had accessed were only small and had only contained potion ingredients and instructions/messages in the form of memory spheres. The thing that rankled her a first, but soon relieved her was that all the compartments and drawers, bar the very first, were locked and would only open when she had sufficiently achieved the necessary requirements, given to her by the previous drawer's memory sphere. While it frustrated her not being able to move forward sooner, she understood the necessity of completing a task fully and not skip corners. Plus, with the amount of drawers in just the first compartment alone, she wouldn't know where to start, never mind what to move onto when she had completed a lesson.

The first drawer, which thankfully was already unlocked, contained a memory sphere explaining the purpose of the trunk, how to progress further and a brief overview of the sort of things she would be learning. After that she had found several memory spheres, books and rolls of hand written notes, all teaching her Occulamency and Ligillamency; both of which she was already proficient in but she still learned a few handy tricks from it. The second drawer, which had unlocked after a burst of magic had first scanned her, then tested her shields somehow, contained the recipe and brewing directions for the potion she was currently making as well as some of the harder to obtain ingredients including the weird red crystal. Unfortunately, her good luck seemed to have ended their; at the end of the recording from the second drawers memory sphere she was told of the two requirements to open the third drawer: firstly she needed to have taken the potion, a problem in itself as she couldn't brew to save her life and secondly, she needed to be within the wards of Hogwarts. She didn't understand the magic used to test her, ensuring she had completed the required tasks, and certainly didn't understand how it was sentient enough to test her Occlumency but no doubt it was highly complex and unknown; her mother had probably invented it for the express purpose of teaching her, and didn't leave any notes or teach it to someone.

After ten minutes of stirring, the potion had sufficiently cooled enough to drink. The resultant colour of the potion was a mixture of randomly splattered shades of red and orange, and looked to have a consistency of water with none of the chunks usually found in potions. Due to the recipe, and ingredient count was only for one person the cauldron she used was a specialised one, usually bought for newt level potions and above, wasn't much bigger than your average saucepan and had a cornered lip designed for easy pouring into flasks and vials. After she had poured the contents into a flask, charmed to be unbreakable of course as she didn't want to risk ruining her first ever successful potion by breaking the flask, she deactivated the security seals she had placed in the room earlier. The seal array was included with the potion recipe, unnoticed until she viewed the memory for a second time and upon hearing it, she could have kicked herself; two years of being a runes mistress and not once did she even think to use something like it. She had to admit though, after getting the idea from her mum the seal array she came up with was a stroke of genius and extremely complex to write out; first it blocked of everything but air from entering or leaving the room and even silenced the air entering and removed all odours. Next it put all creatures that got within a metre of the boundary, bar those keyed in, to sleep so she wouldn't be disturbed that way.

As she drank the potion she realised she had made a slight mistake; the consistency wasn't of water at all, but rather that of slime and to make things worse: it was cold. She had thought the worse thing she had eaten/drank had been the cold custard in the trifle she had tried once but this potion completely smashed that experience to the curb. The only thing that stopped her from throwing up, thus emptying her stomach of the potion before it could take effect, was that the texture had been redeemed by the taste which surprisingly, was rather nice; oranges, cinnamon and a hint of something that was slightly spicy. Well, that and the fact she really didn't want to have to attempt to re-brew it.

Just as she finished the last of it, miraculously managing not to be sick, she became hyper aware of her magic and how it moved throughout her body as slowly; she shrank and started changing form while her mind memorised the process involuntarily but precisely as it happened. Looking in the dress mirror, she was startled to find that the potion she took; the potion her mom had created and left for her was a much simpler process to becoming an Animagus, cutting out the months to make the form revealing potion, then the years it took to research the animal, make and perfect the change then master the animals instincts.

After the agonisingly slow, yet painless process the mirror showed her to be about three inches tall; black eyes, hair, nails and shadowy wings; dark blue skin with dots and lines of black forming a mesmerising pattern and long, sharp teeth and nails. After changing back to her natural human form, again slowly, the process repeated itself several times before it finally settled down and she had stayed in her human form for two minutes without her magic changing her. She smiled to herself and was about to leave the room when suddenly, she was stopped by her magic flaring again. This time instead of shrinking, her limbs elongated and turn a fiery red with some sort of brownish scales forming on certain body parts such as her fore-arms, torso, chest, crotch, upper head and other high risk/revealing areas. Next her core temperature started growing extremely high; way past what would normally kill a person and she began to float on a ball on fire beneath her feet. Finally her skin seemed to become half liquid, half solid and flames began flickering around her as they spread along and licked her skin.

Looking in the mirror again when the process had finalised, she found she looked remarkably like a type of flame demon that was drawn and revered in ancient Maiyen civilisations. What surprised her the most though was the fact the Goblin test didn't reveal this second form; she didn't know if it was due to the potion and/or its mysterious ingredient or if the Goblin test was simply unable to reveal any second possible forms. Seeing how the test was Goblin magic, which was much stronger and accurate than human magic, Kearia was putting her money on the potion that caused her second Animagus form. Regardless, she decided to put it out of her mind and not let anyone know about it as it could become a really useful trump card if she ever found herself in a tight spot. When the process had finally ended for the second time and she was sure it wouldn't start up again with yet another form, Kearia left the room to get ready for her impending meeting; her last meaningful thought being that she needed to obtain a house-elf, even without her unique potion incidents, potion making always left a great deal of mess that needed cleaning, and household maintenance spells were among the many sets of spells her grandparents had decided not to teach her.

Half an hour later found Kearia in Nightclaw's office once more, however this time she had the hood of her cloak raised and its enchantments activated to shadow her face and distort her voice in order to hide her identity in case the impending meeting didn't go in her favour. While waiting she was arranging her thought for different scenarios, hoping to achieve the best results possible no matter how the meeting went. Nightclaw on the other hand was simply sitting there grinning at the thoughts on how much trouble he could legally cause the stuck up, arrogant pure-blood house of Malfoy from this upcoming meeting, his best scenario yet led to the financial and political ruin of the family with them having to serve the goblin nation as slaves in order to survive. The thought would have him chuckling for days; in private of course, no need to be thought of as mad by his fellow goblins. They were both interrupted from their thoughts, and one daydream, by a brief knocking on the office door. Upon Nightclaw's command of "enter", an armoured goblin leading a witch in high class dress robes walked in, bowed then span around and left, leaving the woman behind and shutting the door behind him.

"Narcissa Malfoy nee Black I assume." Kearia spoke, her voice still sounding feminine despite the distortion,"this is Nightclaw, manager of the Black family accounts, I as you must have already gathered by my presence, am the new Lord Black."

"A pleasure to finally meet you my Lord," Narcissa replied, giving a quick curtsey "you said you wished to speak about some family matters?"

"Yes. This here," Kearia said, sliding a rolled piece of parchment across the table to her, "is the marriage contract between yourself and one Lucius Malfoy." She let Narcissa read through it for a few minutes before continuing. "The section pertinent to our meeting is clause five; a male heir to the Black family must be born and declared within five years of the marriage, failing to do so would allow either family to dissolve the marriage should they see fit. As you and Lucius have conceived only a single child, who has been named Scion of the house Malfoy, the contract has been breached. By the end of this meeting we will have gone down three possible routes, so think hard and carefully on your choices; after this there is no turning back."

"I see. May I know my options? Also the contract talks about monetary penalties if the contract is broken, who pays for it and receives it?"

"Your second question first," Nightclaw answered, "since it was the house Malfoy that broke the contract in failing to produce and name an heir for house Black, they pay they penalty should the contract be dissolved. The penalty in this case consists of half the Malfoy family assets, including investments and you, being the injured party, would personally receive it."

"As for your first question," Kearia took over when Narcissa indicated she understood, "by the end of this meeting we will have chosen and gone down one of three possible routes. Before I start, keep in mind that your choice will be final and there will be no going back. Your first option will be that you decide you love your husband and support him as wells as his views and decisions. If you choose this it will be seen that you are against the house of Black and you will be disowned from the Black family and have this meeting **obliviated **from your mind." Kearia stopped then, letting Narcissa think over the information she had just received, continuing at Narcissa's nod of acknowledgment. "Your second and third options both include divorcing your husband, but are different after that stage. Your second choice would be that you decide you don't support Lucius's ideals and actions and choose to divorce him, but neither do you support the ideals and actions of the house of Black; in that case after divorcing Lucius then I will provide a house for you and give you the money and investments gained from the divorce but unless you find yourself in a life or death emergency, you will gain no aid from me or the house of Black. As you will be accepted back into the house of Black you won't be obliviated as the family magic will prevent you from sharing secrets, but neither will you be told any new ones either."

Narcissa sat silently for several moments, intrigue evident on her face, "well that certainly sounds promising if I get to divorce my useless milksop ponce of a husband. I'm guessing the third option would be to work for you? If so I would like to hear at least the general aim for your plans and views before I decide what to choose," she stated.

"Of course, however I should warn you beforehand; as the named Scion of the house of Malfoy, should you divorce your husband then you also give up any and all rights to your son and only him and his father can choose whether or not you will be allowed to be a part of your sons life. Now, my goals include total control of the wizarding world, much like your husbands former master though my approach is subtle and does not include going around persecuting any groups such as muggle-born or purebloods. Nor will I stand for the persecution and inequality of magical creatures and finally, I hope to drag the wizarding world into the next century so we're not so ridiculously far behind the muggle world. That brings us to your final choice, after divorcing Lucius you will support and work for me; though be warned, you will need to leave behind any and all prejudice of half-bloods, muggle-borns and magical creatures you may have. Finally, as you will be put in positions of power I will require a magical oath of secrecy and loyalty. I would also like for you to give me a run down on any and all skills you may have gained and developed so I will know what tasks best to assign to you."

As kearia explained the last choice, Narcissa's smile kept getting bigger and bigger and when the explanation had finished, she took a few minutes to think it over in depth and organise her answer, "You won't have worry about me being prejudice against people as I never really understood the basis behind it, also as sad as it sounds; i've never been a part of my sons life and despite my best efforts, Draco has become a clone of his father in personality as well as looks, though Draco is much stupider and more out-spoken. Moving on," she said, clearing her throat as she tried to remove the look of sorrow and regret from her face, "my skills, at school I was rather good at potions and charms, though nowhere near as gifted as Severous Snape or Lilly Potter, but my real talent lies within politics; though I didn't often accompany Lucius to Wizengamot or school board meetings, I often put **scrying **spells on him and was able to accurately predict both his and his opponents next moves and arguments as well as picking up on the mistakes they made and coming up with ways to exploit it. If thats sufficient information for you, I would like to choose the third option and make the oath now..."

kearia nodded before agreeing, and despite her cloak disguising her face and voice, the joy and satisfaction practically flowing off of her could easily be sensed by the room's other two occupants.

"Very well then," Narcissa said, drawing her wand and pointing it at her heart, albeit slowly to ensure she didn't accidently do something the goblins would perceive as a threat, "I, Narcissa Adrastea Malfoy nee Black do hereby swear upon my life and magic to support the head of house Black in all goals and ideals she may have and I ask upon my magic to aid me in ensuring I don't reveal any secrets I may learn to those not authorised to know by the head of house black. So mote be it."

Upon seeing the flash of magic as the oath was accepted, kearia pulled down her hood, smiling at the surprise on narcissa's face when she introduced herself,

"I guess I should let you know the identity of your head of house then, I am Kearia Hailey Potter; the true face behind the ridiculous tale of the 'boy-who-lived' and head of the ancient and noble houses of Potter, Black, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Gryffindor."

"what...how...but..what?" Narcissa stuttered with a shocked look before she burst out laughing, tears forming in her eyes. Both Kearia and Nightclaw watched her bemused, though Kearia was slightly worried as well; it wouldn't bode well for her if she went slightly mad by the mere mention of what everybody perceived to be the truth about her.

Eventually, Narcissa had calmed down, though her amusement didn't fade and she was able to talk rationally again. "My apologies for my outburst, it's just that dumbledore has reported so much 'truth' about what happened that night, and how he's regularly visited 'Harry Potter the-**boy**-who-lived', I just found it funny how much the press and wizarding world will eat him alive after you reveal the truth."

"that was my thoughts exactly, which is why I've already set the ball rolling by getting Rita Skeeta on board. Now then back to business, I want you to go home and prepare any belongings you want to take with you and remember, you're still a malfoy; what belongs to Lucius belongs to you, I'm sure he won't miss some things when you leave. When a house is available for you to move into, Nightclaw will contact you so you can move all the belongings you wish to keep there. Once you've accomplished that we will push the annulment through. What I would like you to do in the meantime is think on and compile a list of characteristics your sister Bellatrix had as a child and growing up, then how it changed after she was married to Lestrange. Unless you have something further you want to say or ask, you may leave so you can prepare. Narcissa gave a brief, curt nod before bidding them goodbye as she got up and left the room, a goblin escorting her back to the lobby.

As soon as the door shut, Nightclaw spoke up bringing Kearia's wandering attention back to him, "Now then, before we move onto our next piece of business I have a quick question for you; just what part of the seer arts is your friend gifted in?"

Kearia blinked at the randomness of the question before answering in a confused tone, "She calculates odds and possibilities, why?"

"That explains it then, when I was making inquiries into buying shares of the companies you wished me to, I discovered that a few of them hadn't been established yet and upon discreetly looking into it, they won't announce themselves for a few years yet. The ones that were already established were easier to deal with and I managed to buy all the shares you wanted for thirty thousand galleons. It is expected to earn that back within a year and a half, then a total monthly profit of 10% after that."

"I see, thanks for doing that for me and when the others finally go public I would like you to buy the specified shares in them. My last business for day is that I need to visit Ravenclaw vault, there are certain forgotten magics that would be useful but all known copies have been lost and the family of the author that crafted and documented them has long since died out, meaning the library should have a copy."

"Of course, I will take you down my self." Nightclaw said as he got up and led her out of the room and down towards the carts.

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><p><strong>Omake time!<strong>

Albus sighed in bliss as he relaxed in his ornate golden hot tub, sinking slightly to allow the bubbles to rise up to his chin. This was probably his favourite of the Potter artifacts head err, cough 'liberated' cough; it truly was a work of brilliance and who deserved it more than him, Albus Dumbledore; vanquisher of Gallert Grindalwald, chief wizard of the wizengamot, supreme mugwump if the he ICW, headmaster of Hogwarts and the only person Voldemort feared? What made the hot tub so brilliant was that for every minute you stayed submerged in its magic infused water, you were de-aged by a year and it didn't have that mast side-effect of leaving you sterile like the Philosophers Stone did. Like all powerful magics it did have a downside to it though; for every minute spent in the water, and subsequent extra year of life; your magical core was depleted to just enough live for the duration of a day, meaning five minutes meant five years knocked off but five days without magic, a fair trade in his opinion. Fortunately he had came up with a solution; using diamonds as magical foci, he would pump magic in them and during his magicless days he would yous them to power his spells.

He sighed again then as the healing magic healed the mast bruise on his glutimus maximus before he grinned, the goblins could try all they liked to retrieve the bath or the blade next to him which he had taken from the Potter vaults; this room had been heavily enchanted to prevent any non-authorised magic from working in this room and it was under the Fideleus so no one else knew of it. Such a pity Dumbledore underestimated just how powerful goblin magic was compared to wizarding magic... Oh well.

Dumbledore picked up the blade that lay next to him then; it was probably the only piece of goblin wrought metal that they had completely surrendered all ownership ties to admit was the only other thing, bar the bath he was currently in, that rightfully belonged to the Potter family. It was a marvellous work, incredibly balanced and always razor sharp. The dagger was named the vampires Fang' and aptly so; whenever it cut something it would fill a 20ml vial that was located in the hilt with the victims blood; perfect for stealing a persons lifeblood to get past wards or to use as a conduit to put some nasty curses on the person the blood belongs too, no matter where they were. 'If only he would get the chance to steal some vampires blood' he thought wistfully, 'their natural resistance to mind magics would be nullified and i could gain some powerful pawns for my live games of chess.'

It was just as he thought that when the goblin magic finally broke through his enchantments and wards and in a flash of gold he vanished, the bath and dagger going with him. In another part of England, though an alternative universe, a female blond police woman was the hostage in what would appear to be a normal hostage situation; that is if there wasn't dead zombies around them while the man holding her had red eyes, fangs and was speaking of vampires while the one who should be rescuing her, who also had fangs and red eyes, had just been shot to pieces, reformed, killed all the zombies and was now asking her if she was a virgins of all things! Before she could answer him, all three were blinded by a flash of good light while above them a golden bath tipped over; ejecting a naked wrinkly old man who landed on the police girl and hostage taking vampire, forcing them to the ground while the blade in his hand stabbed the vampire in the heart; turning him to dust when it killed him, while his crotch landed just in the line of sight the girls recently recovered eyes, only a few millimetres from touching her. In another flash the bath and dagger disappeared while a flaming bird appeared, grilled apologetics the disappeared again taking the old naked man with it.

Alucard just stood there stupefied before cursing,

"dammit, this isn't going to plan," he said gaining the girls attention, "I was supposed to embarrass you into admitting you were a virgin, even though I can tell by your smell; so pure and fresh, so i could shoot you through your lung to kill the vampire holding you, even though a head shot was available and clear of obstacles, then in the throws of blood-loss you wouldn't be thinking straight and you would have consented to turning into a vampire where you would go on missions while learning to be a true draculina, me tormenting you all the while. After a few months you would get horny and want me sexually while being in a relationship with a master witch from an alternative universe; who would need to turn in order to live after being in an accident, eventually my master would be turned as well and we would all live happily ever after while I finally got my harem of three!"

"Erm.." Seras spoke up, "would you be able to erase my memories of the last few minutes? I really don't want to remember his wrinkly balls" she said, going green.

"sure why not?" he replied. Suddenly Seras had thrown herself at his feet, hugging his legs as she sobbed for him to turn her and erase the last five minutes from her memory. Grinning, he lifted her to get better access to her neck, his plans are back on track! He sighed in bliss at the taste as he drank her blood; his hunch was right, Seras Victoria would make a fine draculina.

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><p>Okay like it? Please address to favourites and alert list and for gods sake <strong>REVIEW!<strong> This isn't me being vain but without reviews saying what you like/dislike or pointing out errors I can't improve the story. No flames though as they will be ignored as always just like constructive criticism will be gladly accepted.

Now, review response time!

**Raw66: **yeah I was intending to let voldie live a bit due to possessing Quirrel, the rest is a secret for now though

**waukeepaintballer: **to be honest I didn't know what Umbridge's wand looked like but after checking the link you game me I can say Kearia's looks nothing like it, I would say Umbridge's is ribbed, 'shudder' while Kearia's is a black and white drill piece with finger grooves for the handle, and a black and white wand shaped cheese-string for the body, though obviously made of wood not cheese.

**Music26401:** yeah she's only eleven but she's been raised by purebloods of an ancient and noble houses to be trained to take over at least the Potter house. In my opinion purebloods would have been raised like kids in middle aged britain: trained to take over the family business at a young age and since she would be taking over earlier than that her grandparents accelerated her education in business matters. Also, apart from having a mastery in runes and blood magic, the details of which are secret for now, the only spells she knows how to use are the **'feather light charm' **and the **'shrinking charm'.**

**schnookums: **what does any person of influence use the media for? Give the press stories that puts them in a good light while bashing her opponents lol. Imagine the summer and school year after harry declares Voldemort's resurrection how harry gets bashed and you'll sort of get an idea of what I'm planning and sorry about the spelling errors; that was my spell checker trying to be smart despite the fact I had customised it for name spellings.

**917brat:** thanks and yes, she probably will be the ultimate snake. She won't be in Slytherin though cause honestly, what cunning person would let themselves be sorted into a house that screams 'I'm cunning and manipulative, don't trust me!', besides she's already going to cause a scandal by revealing the truth about her gender, why add to that by declaring herself dark as all Slytherins are thought off as.

**stormingnight:** I might not have made that clear enough, what I meant was she was a Horcrux for one of seven **soul pieces**, only five were summoned because there were six Horcruxes, they didn't want to bring the main soul piece which was the one possessing Quirrell so that accounts for one soul piece, she was already there so that accounts for a second leaving only five soul pieces that needed summoning. And yeah Sirius will come up eventually but remember, Dementors are dangerous and uncontrollable, it's a wonder no one ever died in Azkaban.


	5. Chapter 5

Okay hands up, who missed me? LoL

Sorry about the wait but its here now; I would have it uploaded about a week ago but every time I tried FanFiction gave me a processing error saying 'the document is empty'. It wasn't until yesterday that i realised the document was .docx, which despite being one of the accepted formats, it wouldnt have it until i changed it to 2004 .doc. Oh well, its here now. Also, the Hellsing omake in the previous chapter, the only relevence it had with this story is the items mentioned that Dumbledore stole. The actual plot comes from a Harry Potter/Hellsing crossover I wrote a couple of chapters for a few years ago but never published.

Disclaimer: I don't own or claim ownership to any copyright material, anything you recognise from elsewhere is what probably inspired me. Also the scene on the lake isn't mine, however i can't remember the story or author i got it from. It's not the same word-for-word but if someone finds it please tell me and i'll add it into the disclaimer.

**bold:** excerpt from the book; spell names  
><em>Italics: <em>memories  
><span>underlined:<span> thoughts; mind speak

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><p>Kearia sighed from her vantage point of the barrier that separated Platform Nine and Three Quarters from the rest of the Muggle train station; Kings Cross. She had arrived Merlin knows how early in order to not only reserve her choice of carriage, but more importantly; so she could catch sight of a particular family. Or rather, a certain person from a particular family.<p>

In the weeks since her meeting with Narcissa, several things worth noting had happened/been uncovered; some really good, some not so good, one just plain weird. One thing they unfortunately all had in common was that they had both good and bad sides to them.

First of all, the spell she had been looking for was indeed located in a tome in the Ravenclaw vault library. What the spell did was create a sort of clone of the user, complete with the users memories, view points and moral codes, genetic code, Magical Signature and core size; making it impossible for someone not in the know to find any evidence that the clone was false. The clone also shared a mind link with the creator and to prevent it from killing the creator and becoming the 'original' so to speak; the clone couldn't do anything without the originals direct, express permission. This was useful for Kearia as she could use the clones as proxies for her other seats during the Wizengamot meetings as well as her original purpose of bouncing ideas off of another mind that was as just knowledgeable as hers and had her moral view points in order to create/develop more spells.

Unfortunately, the spell was technically a Necromantic ritual; therefore making it impossible to use without either having a natural talent in Necromancy, or having studied and practised the Necromantic Arts for a considerable number of years. The only other way to use the ritual was to perform it during the midnight hour out in free nature on the day of a Blue Full Moon on Samhain night; something that only ever occurs once every twenty-four allignments of the planets and sun; and time between allignments varied in occurrence from two hundred years to nine hundred years. Thankfully, it just so happened that this Samhain night was a Blue Full Moon, so she wouldn't have to wait too long to perform it. Talk about lucky.

The next thing of note was the new project she had undertaken. She had gotten the idea after watching a Muggle show about a boy who thanks to this watch thing, turned into these weird alien creatures, much like the Animagus transformation. While most of the things on the show was impractical and un-achievable even with Magic, one thing she saw was a kind of snowboard that was able to fly; something that was already possible, albeit done differently in the form of broomsticks. To start off with, she had used the enchantments and runes from a broomstick as a reference template and the more she tested it and worked out the kinks, the more she changed the enchantments and runes on it until now they were nothing like the ones found on broomsticks. It wasn't quite ready yet as there were still some problems with the handling, but the acceleration, de-acceleration, stability and height control were all working fine so she expected to complete it in a few months. She would even go as far to say that the experience was much better than a broomstick and due to the foot straps, there was no chance of falling off it. Also while impractical in its use in the cartoon, the watch gave her interesting ideas in revolutionising the storage and transport of trunks, though she would wait a bit for her schedule to clear up before starting on that.

While those first two were mostly good, with a small bit of bad that simply delayed her progress on them, the next two were more bad with a bit of good yet if done correctly, would make the whole situation nothing but good for her and her plans, while bad for anyone going against her ideals and aims. The first was that Narcissa, once again a Black and currently living in Grimmauld place though she was currently away in Spain on holiday, had come back with her report on her sister. That, coupled with the marriage contract binding Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange proved that Bellatrix wasn't actually a fanatical Pure-Blood bigot; she was simply that way due to a number of mind control clauses in the marriage contract and as soon the marriage is annulled, she would be her true self again. The problem though would be convincing the Wizengamot of that; they hated to admit they were wrong and even if she wasn't tried and questioned under Veritaserum, they were happy to pronounce her guilty as the mind control caused her to happily confess to the crimes. Kearia only hoped she could stop Bellatrix from drowning in guilt once the mind control had been lifted. Then there was Lady Longbottom to deal with, as if things weren't already bad enough. She would be difficult to convince after her son and daughter-in-law were left comatose. Luckily there was a handy, simple solution to it; though she didn't know whether Lady Longbottom would agree to the procedure seeing how it was considered dark under the newly revised Ministry guidelines.

The last item, while not nearly as bad was more strange than anything. After the enchantments that Dumbledore had placed on her was uncovered and steps taken to correct it, the Goblins conducted an in-depth audit of all her accounts and records. There wasn't much to discover apart from the already discovered illegal withdrawals, more than first expected, in the early days when he was still her Magical guardian, but the weird thing they found was a marriage contract signed by both Dumbledore, who was her Magical Guardian at the time, and the girls parents. While that wasn't so weird, what was weird was that while same sex marriage wasn't illegal due to conception being possible thanks to Magic, it was frowned upon by certain families; her betrothed family being one of them. What really caused it to be weird though was that the contract wouldn't have been legal unless her true, full name was used; which it was, or if either party didn't know exactly what they were signing so that meant that the girls family; a Pure-Blood house of which were traditionally avid protesters to same sex relationships, knew of and approved a same sex marriage for their only daughter. Luckily since Magic recognised Dumbledore having gained Guardianship illegally, he could only approve the contract as proxy to the head of Potter family, not cement the clauses. While the contract was still legally binding due to him being both her Guardian and head of the Wizengamot at the time, as the head of house she could tweak and change the contract to her liking so long as neither of them were swapped out of the contract in exchange for someone else.

With a sigh, Kearia stood up from her seat and went back to her carriage, pulling down the presence repelling wards as she entered; there was only twenty minutes until the train left and if the Weasley family hadn't arrived by now, it was highly likely they would miss the train and Apparate or Floo there directly instead.

"Hey Kia!" A voice said, pulling her from her musing, "enjoy the last of your Summer?"

As she looked up, Kearia wasn't surprised to see her best friend, confident and investment advisor sitting in the carriage as if she owned it; regardless of the wards she had placed to hide it from everyone else. What Kearia was surprised about however was the three other girls sat inside, two she recognised as the eldest daughters from the Greengrass and Davis families and one she didn't that seemed to be a Muggle-Born considering the look of open excitement of seeing something new clearly displayed on her face.

"Lizzy," she sighed exasperated in reply, "I had hoped you'd have got over that ridiculous nickname you gave me."

Lizzy simply giggled, "You know, I almost had. But then I got an owl from you and I suddenly remembered why I gave you that nickname in the first place. Not very nice of you to do that to me by the way." Her tone turned chastising at the end, but the other four could still detect humour in her voice.

"I'm sorry but it was necessary, beside its not just you who was effected by it, and I did remind you straight away. Anyway, where are my manners," Kearia said, directing her attention to the newcomers, "Miss Greengrass, Miss Davies, a pleasure to formally meet you, you may call me Hailey." She nodded at each, then turned her attention to the last girl in the carriage, "my apologies but I assume you're a Muggle-Born as I don't recognise you, your name is?"

"Of course, my name's Hermione Granger and yes, I'm a Muggle-Born. I was so excited when I found out I'm a witch, I mean it explained so many things. I've already memorised my course books by heart and I can't wait until classes start but I wish we could do Magic out of school in order to practice, I hope I'm not behind in all this." The now identified Hermione blurted out in an excited rush, appearing to not having life's pesky requirement of breathing. Kearia, as well as the other two new girls merely blinked when she said that.

"Wow," Daphne said, "definitely a Ravenclaw you; and don't worry about being behind, its actually harmful to practice too many wand based spells outside of a magically rich environment like a school until magical maturity."

"Really you think so?" Hermione replied sounding pleased, "I was hoping for Gryffindor as they say that's supposed to be the best house, after all Headmaster Dumbledore was sorted there, but I think that Ravenclaw would suit me better."

"I wouldn't say its the best," Kearia interjected, "its actually the worst quality wise, and second worst overall."

"Really? And what would you say was the worst, Slytherin?" Tracy asked in a huff.

"Yes actually, but not for the reasons your thinking of." Kearia replied, confusing them. Meanwhile, Lizzy who already knew what Kearia was like and having expected this to happen, simply sat on the side-lines watching in amusement. She only wished she had some pop-corn

"First of all, while cunning and ambition are good traits to have, its not a very good idea to broadcast that you have high levels of them as people won't trust you, never mind the fact Slytherins never make friends; only acquaintances who will back-stab you at the first opportune moment they get. Secondly, ever since the Dark Lord revealed he had been sorted in Slytherin, three fourths of the population automatically assume any and all Slytherins are Pure-Blood bigot Death Eaters in training. The best place for a true Slytherin to be sorted is actually Hufflepuff; everybody underestimates them so you can work behind the scenes, they will be loyal friends to you simply for being sorted in their house and they also nearly always get jobs in highly influential and well connected places such as the head of the DMLE, director of St. Mungos and so on, and are actually good at their job due to their hard working nature."

"You know, that actually makes sense. But why shouldn't a Slytherin get placed in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor?" Daphne asked, a calculating expression on her face.

"Well Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad for a Slytherin, but everyone expects them to achieve high so you can't exactly work from behind the scenes. Plus you don't get the same loyalty from 'Claws as you do the 'Puffs; And Gryffindor, are you mad? That's the worst place to be sorted in full stop, while the official trait is bravery, the traits that cause the level of bravery required for Gryffindor are recklessness, brashness and pig-headedness. The only decent job a hard liner Gryffindor can get is an Auror or Hit-Wizard, and the Gryffindor Aurors/Hit-Wizards usually get killed in the most horrendous ways or seriously injured the most frequent; take Mad-Eye Moody and the Prewitt twins for example. That and everyone expects you to be brash and foolish, always being in the limelight if your Gryffindor."

"So Kia," Lizzy said, knowing her friends rant was finished due to experience, "you still hoping for Ravenclaw or Gryffindor?"

Kearia smirked at this; thanks to the previous conversation she knew her answer would make the newbies splutter. "Yes actually, though Gryffindor would be preferable. How did you guess?" Out of the corners of their eyes they saw the other three going slack-jawed as they tried to speak their questions.

"Girl, you know I don't guess. I'm just that good." Lizzy exclaimed as she pompously flipped her hair over her shoulder.

"Hold on a minute," Daphne screeched, being the first to regain control of her mouth shortly followed by the other two, "you just gave that speech like a true Slytherin and yet your hoping for Gryffindor, the house that you yourself pointed out was the worst house to be in for various reasons, Slytherin at heart or not. Are _you_ mad?"

"He he, no I'm not mad. Unfortunately, due to who I am and current misconceptions surrounding me then the best place for me to 'hide behind the scenes' as it were is to go to Gryffindor; it would actually be more subtle for me to be brash in the limelight."

"And who are you?" Hermione asked, matching the curious expression on the faces of Daphne and Tracy, though they knew enough of political manoeuvring to not bother asking.

"Now, now" Kearia tutted humorously, wagging her index finger, "I've only just met you, you don't expect me to confess all my secrets do you?" Seeing how Hermione had adopted an ashamed, apologetic expression Kearia chuckled before speaking up again, "don't worry about it; everything will be revealed at the sorting ceremony. I just want to see the surprise on everyones' faces when it does."

Before they could carry one with their conversation they were interrupted by the carriage door opening as a gangly red haired boy about their age stepped in with a sneer upon his face and upon seeing that the carriage was occupied solely by girls, made a face and walked out again not even bothering to shut the door behind him.

"Well that was rude" Lizzy huffed as she shut the door, only for it to open again as soon as she sat back down, this time three boys walking in; a blonde haired ponce of a boy followed by two seemingly gorillas in clothes, both wearing a dazed expression.

"Greengrass, Davis," the blonde said, nodding slightly to them with a barely suppressed sneer. As he turned to the remaining three he openly sneered at them, thinking them to be 'Mud-Bloods' or Half-Bloods due to not recognising them; completely missing the higher than normal cheekbones prominent on all Pure-Blood nobility; the Ancient and Noble houses, that showed on the three despite the baby fat they still had. It was actually something that had made Kearia stop and think for a minute as Hermione was supposed to be a Muggle-Born, yet she had the physical traits of an ancient and noble house. Feeling he had sufficiently shown his superiority, Malfoy turned back to the two he knew before asking what he came in for, "I heard Harry Potter was on the train, have you seen him?"

"Why?" Kearia asked, causing his attention to snap to her, "he a friend of yours or something?"

If he was sneering at her before, it was nothing compared to now as he let out a scathing remark, "you must be a Mud-Blood then, not even knowing about Harry Potter."

"I'd watch your tone if I was you Malfoy," she spat out in reply, causing his cheeks and ears to turn pink, "it doesn't pay to insult the heirs to ancient and noble families; especially if said family is older and has more prestige and wealth." It was at this point he turned pale as he realised just what could happen. Before he could stammer out an apology she spoke up again, "and yes I do know about the Potter heir, quite intimately in fact; I was merely asking to see why you were looking for him, you don't exactly run in the same circles as him do you."

Malfoy just stood there, his mouth opening and closing several times like a fish before he swivelled on his heel and in the most effeminate way possible, stalked away. The two gorillas just blinked stupidly before running off to catch up with him.

"You know Harry Potter?" Hermione asked as Lizzy once again shut the carriage door in a huff, "I've read all about him of course, **I got a few extra books for background reading; he's in 'Modern Magical History', 'The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts' and 'Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century'."**

"We know," Kearia said with an amused smile on her face, "and trust me, most of its a load of bull."

"Wha, bu, how can you say that! The authors assured everyone they had researched their facts thoroughly before publishing their books."

"Hermione," Kearia interjected before she could go any further in her rant, "if your going to go into Ravenclaw then one thing you need to realise is that a humans view point will always be bias; no matter what a book says is true or is impossible, there will always be another side or currently undiscovered method. Secondly, where would they have gone for this so called 'research'? James and Lilly Potter died that night, the Dark Lord vanished and hasn't been seen or heard from since and the Potter heir was only a little over a year old; even if they used Legillimancy on the child they wouldn't have gotten much information."

"But what about Magical Scans? Surely they would tell what happened, and what's Legillimancy?"

"Legillimancy is the art of reading minds, the only protection for this is Occlumency." Lizzy replied instead before Kearia took over.

"Also when what ever the Dark Lord tried backfired, the backlash caused a form of Magical Radiation contained within the ten metre radius of the wards that made it unsafe to use Magic within the area. When the Radiation finally dissipated half an hour later, it took with it any and all Magical Trace including the wards. Albus Dumbledore, who arrived ten minutes after that, couldn't even get information on the wards from his Scans even though he erected some of them himself."

"Wait," Daphne interrupted, "your telling me that the Boy-Who-Lived might not have survived the killing curse after all?"

"Yeah, Dumbledore only assumed he survived it because that was the Dark Lords favourite curse and the 'famous scar'," she said making air quotes, "contained dark Magic that should have been removed by healers rather than left alone like he did. After that Albus dumped the Potter heir with Lilly's Muggle, Magic hating sister and left it at that."

The three girls, Lizzy not included, were gobsmacked for a good half hour before they finally started to recover.

"So assuming what you say is true," Hermione said tentatively, "how do you know? That's the sort of thing anyone in a position of power would do anything to keep secret."

"Like I said, I know the Potter heir quite well. Trust me when I say that by the end of breakfast tomorrow, the entirety of Magical Britain will have had the lies behind the 'Boy-Who-Lived' ripped away as the truth is explained. Expect a lot of howlers to visit Dumbledore during meal times for the first few days."

Seeing that further conversation was over, Kearia got out the runes notes and diagrams on the hover-board project she was working on before checking it over; making minor changes here and there. A few hours later, not that Kearia noticed so engrossed as she was by her work, she was brought back to attention by Hermione shaking her shoulder. As she looked around, she had noticed the other girls had left the compartment and had started to mingle with the ever growing crowd of people. Sighing as she put her work away, she got up and followed Hermione off the train, pulling her cloak tight and shivering violently as she stepped into the cold air. That had to be one of the only downsides to her Fire-Demon Animagus form; while she enjoyed the heat and could stand high temperatures much easier, the cold effected her much more negatively than normal.

They had just made it to the others when a loud, booming voice echoed over the crowd,

"**Firs' years! Firs' years over here!**" A big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads, calling out for first years as children detached themselves from the crowd; all considerably smaller than the majority that remained behind. "**C'mon, follow me — any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!**" Slipping and stumbling, they followed the giant of a man down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path, his head swinging back and forth as he watched out for anyone tripping, falling or wandering off.

"You ther', stop!" He suddenly cried out in horror as everyone stopped dead in surprise, looking at Malfoy who had frozen mid-step as the giant came rushing over to him, shoving him backwards forcibly. The childrens' Vision of the giant's front was obscured when he crouched down in front of the spot Malfoy was about to stand on. Upon standing back up, many were dumbfounded by the sight of him cradling a rat in his hand, stroking it with a single, oversized finger as it lay limp in sleep .

"Oy, Scabbers!" A voice shouted as the gangly, red haired boy from earlier on the train ran forwards and snatched the rat before shoving it none to gently in his pocket.

"Mighty fine rat y'got ther'," the giant exclaimed with an almost fanatic gleam in his eyes, "right now, onwards again." And with that he continued walking as if nothing had happened, shortly followed by the first years bar Malfoy who was sat on the ground in shock. All through it only Lizzy noticed Kearia's clenched fists and tight eyes as she gazed at the rat. Calmly she took her hand, sufficiently distracting her and allowing her to calm down.

"The odds of bringing him before the Wizengamot and revealing the truth by Valentine's next year is nine in ten" Kearia let out a small smile at that before following the crowd once more, though she didn't let go of Lizzy's hand and the silent comfort it provided her.

As Daphne walked past with the other four girls, she couldn't help but take a parting shot at Malfoy and crouched down to whisper in his ear,

"Careful Malfoy, keep following orders like that and one might think your a lowly servant. Especially when said person giving the orders is an expelled Half-Blood made Game-Keeper." As she stood and caught up with her friends she chuckled at the strange mix of horror and anger plastered on his face before he jumped up and made a hasty run back to the front of the crowd.

**Yell get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," **the giant ** called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here." ****There was a loud "Oooooh!" **That arose from the first years as they saw the castle for the first time, though later the Slytherins would deny publicly deny reacting in such a way. **The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers. **Before long the group had arrived at the edge of the lake and in front of them were a hoard of small, rickety looking boats.  
><strong>"No more'n four to a boat!" <strong>He** called, pointing to the fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore**

Kearia gingerly stepped into the boat followed by Daphne and Tracy; her Animagus form may have gave her a strong dislike to the cold but she had always hated large bodies of water due to a couple of near drowning experiences when she was younger. Now she was faced with both rolled into one cold, deep package. Back on shore Hermione was looking around nervously for a boat while Lizzy just looked at her amused.

"Are you not getting in Hermione?"

"What? But don't you want to sit with your friend?" She asked. Lizzy just sighed and shook her head as she took Hermione's hand and dragged her into the boat with her.

"Hey! What are you doing!" Hermione whisper-shouted furiously, fear lacing her voice, "he said no more than four to a boat."

"Relax" Lizzy replied as the boats began their journey, "the odds of the boat tipping over, or one of us falling out without being pushed is one in a thousand."

"Huh?"

"She means that its impossible to fall out due to the boats being charmed to automatically expand to fit the number of occupants and always stay upright no matter how bad the weather is or how rough the waves on the lake are." Kearia explained upon seeing the confused faces of the other three. The others noticed however that Kearia's tight grip on the sides never loosened despite her confidence in the boats.

"Heads down!" Their guide yelled out as the first line of boats reached the cave entrance in the cliff-face. Most of them complied, bending low to pass under the low hanging ivy that covered the entrance; most being all but Malfoy who was already sitting backwards in order to be able sneer at Daphne unhindered, sat up straight and twisted his head around as he sneered and called out haughtily

"Don't tell _me_ what to do you stupid serv-urk!"

Everyone in the back two rows had been periodically looking at Malfoy as he had been sitting backwards on the back of the boat, almost as if he was begging for an accident; but when he started his rant he brought the attention of all the first years on him so they were all able to witness his head catch on the ivy and drag him of the boat as it moved forward. After a few seconds of swinging there, the vine snapped and he dropped into the lake causing quite a number of the observers to worry, though none more so than their guide who would no doubt be held responsible if the Malfoy heir came to harm under his watch. Suddenly, surprising all of them, a large tentacle rose from the lake ensuing panic as one girl screamed 'Kraken!'. Thankfully, before for anyone could tip their boats or push someone/fall overboard in their panic, the tentacle reached over the boats and a sucker cup released its suction; dropping a soaked and dazed Malfoy onto their guide's lap.

"Don' worry 'bout that, tis only the Giant Squid. He's a kinda Guardian fer th' Lake."

The boats arrived at the converted harbour with out any further incident after that, though it certainly helped that the journey only lasted a further two minutes. Before long everyone had piled out of the boats, Malfoy over their guides shoulder as he still wasn't all that with it, while their guide was doing a last minute check of the boats.

"Oy ther'" he called over the crowd, "who's is th' toad?"

"Trevor!" A pudgy, round faced boy cried in relief, rushing up to Hagrid, "thank you sir."

"Hagrid, jus' call meh Hagrid." He replied waving him off. After handing over the toad, Hagrid then led them up a passageway that had been cut into the rock, coming out into a small room with a large, oak double doors that Hagrid firmly knocked three times with his monster of a fist before stepping back. After a few tense seconds the doors began opening slowly outwards, reminding all the Muggle-Born/raised of a horror film. Well, one without the smoke coming from the doorway that is, or the creepy door knocker and the creaking hinges. As soon as the doors had opened completely, the open doorway revealed a stern looking woman in emerald green robes standing in the doorway before she walked out and stood in front of the first years, gazing at each of them for several seconds. The first thought that ran through the minds of most of them about her was that she was not a woman you wanted to cross; her whole demeaner screamed that she wouldn't stand for any nonsense, from her dark grey hair tied tightly back in a bun, to her welcoming yet stern gaze to her rigid posture.

**"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall,"** Hagrid spoke up, diverting her attention to him.

"Thank you Hagrid, you may go join the feast. I will take them from here." She replied, shutting the doors behind him with a flick of her wand. "**Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.**

**"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.**

**"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting." **Her eyes flickered to the boy with a toad, who's cloak was fastened under his ear, and the rude red-haired boy from earlier who had a smudged nose and what appeared to be meat around his lips. She had turned and was about to open the doors before she spotted the still soaked Malfoy, propped against the wall with a dazed expression still on his face,

"Goodness, what on Earth happened to him?" She exclaimed in surprise

"He fell overboard Mam," a girl spoke up, "bin the same since."

McGonagall just sighed before shooting an **Enervate** and drying charm at him, quickly walking back inside before he awoke.

Five minutes later, Malfoy had been informed by his two pet gorillas about what had happened since his 'accident' just in time for Professor McGonagall's return where she ushered them through the door, shutting it behind them. Not even a minute after they left, a bunch of milky-see through figures floated through a side wall, speaking in a loud, over-dramatic voice as they did,

**"Forgive and forget, I say," **a fat monk-like ghost was saying, "**we ought to**, hang on! Where's the new first years?"

As the first years walked in Kearia was amused by her fellow first years tales of what they heard from friends and relatives about how they were sorted. She squeezed Hermione's hand in comfort though when she heard her nervous whispers of spells she had memorised during the summer. There was a sudden gasp of shock from a girl at the front that drew the attention of the rest of the first years and upon seeing the direction of the girl's gaze, everyone looked up at the ceiling.

"Its bewitched to look like the outside sky, I read it in 'Hogwarts: A History'" Hermione said in wonder; and it was indeed impressive for such a powerful enchantment to hold up without renewal since the castle's construction. Sure the ministry had things similar but the charms had to be renewed bi-monthly and were much smaller and in less detail. Kearia looked back to Professor McGonagall when she put an old, patched and frayed hat on top of a three legged stool that seemed to have had seen better days. The entire hall had turned their attention to the hat and there was complete silence for several long seconds before a rip appeared above the brim, forming a mouth and to the shock of all the first years, it began to sing.

**"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,  
><strong>**But don't judge on what you see,  
><strong>**I'll eat myself if you can find  
><strong>**A smarter hat than me.**

**You can keep your bowlers black,  
><strong>**Your top hats sleek and tall,  
><strong>**For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat,  
><strong>**And I can cap them all.**

**There's nothing hidden in your head,  
><strong>**The Sorting Hat can't see,  
><strong>**So try me on and I will tell you,  
><strong>**Where you ought to be.**

**You might belong in Gryffindor,  
><strong>**Where dwell the brave at heart,  
><strong>**Their daring, nerve, and chivalry,  
><strong>**Set Gryffindors apart;**

**You might belong in Hufflepuff,  
><strong>**Where they are just and loyal,  
><strong>**Those patient Hufflepuffs are true,  
><strong>**And unafraid of toil;**

**Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,  
><strong>**if you've a ready mind,  
><strong>**Where those of wit and learning,  
><strong>**Will always find their kind;**

**Or perhaps in Slytherin,  
><strong>**You'll make your real friends,  
><strong>**Those cunning folk use any means,  
><strong>**To achieve their ends.**

**So put me on! Don't be afraid!  
><strong>**And don't get in a flap!  
><strong>**You're in safe hands (though I have none)  
><strong>**For I'm a Thinking Cap!"**

The hall erupted in applause while many first years sighed in relief; the red-haired boy from earlier could clearly be heard as he admitted to believing his brothers obvious lies of fighting a Troll. Professor McGonagall had opened her mouth speak and was about to start the sorting when she was interrupted by the sorting hat speaking up, something that shocked everyone as nowhere in recorded history had it done so before. Though the shock levels were nothing compared to the actual words it said.

"Now," the hat called out, "before I sort you could I please ask Miss Potter to please come up?"

Hailey briefly glanced around, noting the various reactions; the most common of the reactions belonged to the majority of staff and students and was that of shock and confusion. Understandable as the world was told of the only Potter child being Harry, the _Boy_-Who-Lived. Next was the shock, disbelief and the hint of rage on Professor McGonagall's face as she turned to glare at the Headmaster, who's face was showing fear as he shot the hat a betrayed look. The last notable reaction, minus Lizzie's smug look, was from Kearia's new friends as they thought back on their earlier conversation; _"Trust me when I say that by the end of breakfast tomorrow, the entirety of Magical Britain will have had the lies behind the 'Boy-Who-Lived' ripped away as the truth is explained." _After her brief assessment Kearia stepped forward with a small smirk and although the expressions of the most of the hall didn't change, Dumbledore's eyes tightened slightly and her new friends shock heightened as they saw her move before at different stages, they gained looks of realisation. As soon as Kearia sat down and placed the hat on her head, the brim covering her eyes, the hall erupted in whispers as theories and bets flew back and forth at a rapid pace.

"Well hello there Miss Potter, I must say it's a pleasure to metaphorically meet you." Kearia heard in her head.

"Thank you, it's pleasure to meet you too. I'm guessing this is about my status as heads of the houses for three of the founders?"

"Indeed. Within the week you will need to go to the room of requirements to speak with Madame Hogwarts; she will instruct you fully on your duties but I have been asked to give a brief overview. First, until you find Hufflepuffs heir, and by that I mean he or she takes up mantle as Head of House, everything you do/undo can be undone/redone by the Headmaster. Anything obvious will be noticed immediately and probably clue him in that he's in danger of losing his power in Hogwarts and he'll likely raise a fuss so be careful. Once you have found the Hufflepuff heir and the houses are reunited then any minor changes can only be contested by a founders heir; any big changes will need a majority vote to do/undo, something that won't be a problem for you. There will be some big decisions however that will need the agreement of all four houses."

"My thanks, but what and where is the room of requirement? I don't think I've ever read or heard about it before."

"You won't have, it's not widely known but if you call upon a House Elf and ask for the 'come and go room', Helga and Rowenna the dirty minxes. Anyway, ask a House Elf and they'll take you; as for what it is, it is as the name suggests: room of requirement, what ever it is you require it to be; it will be. Now that's out of the way, it better be..."

"GRYFINDOR!" The hat shouted, prompting the Gryffindor house to start clapping and cheering. "Thank you professor, you can resume the sorting now." That hat said

"Err yes, huh-hmm" Professor McGonagall muttered, clearing her throat, "Abbot, Hannah," she called out to the students, one of them moving forwards and sat down.

Kearia phased out then, unconsciously memorising names and faces while clapping during the sortings, only really paying attention to her friends. Tracy, following Kearia's advice, was sorted in Hufflepuff as well as Daphne. Hermione surprised all four of the other girls by being sorted in Gryffindor where she sat next to Kearia.

"What?" She said upon seeing Kearia's raised eyebrow, "I can still keep up with my studies and be top of the year without being in Ravenclaw. Besides, I couldn't leave you alone now could I? I don't know Lizzy very well but I'm sure she's not Gryffindor material." Kearia just laughed and shook her head as she turned her attention back to the sorting.

Then, with a stuttered call of "Myrddin, Elizabeth" the majority of the school let out gasps of shock and surprise as Lizzy walked to the hat; everyone thought that Merlin died childless, all reports and tales suggested so. Yet here was a child with his surname making it obvious the line had survived, unannounced for all these centuries. For Hermione, Daphne and Tracy it was almost to much to handle however; first they found out their new friend was actually the girl everyone thought to be 'The-Boy-Who-Lived', and now they find out their other new friend was of the line of Merlin.

**There weren't many people left now. "Moon"…, "Nott"…, "Parkinson"…, then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil"…, then "Perks, Sally-Anne" **Finally, Professor McGonagall came to the name everyone was waiting for since the hat called Kearia up earlier. She stared at the parchment in her hands for several seconds before sighing and called out "Potter, Harry." There was silence for several seconds as people looked around when no-one stepped forwards. With another sigh, Professor McGonagall, realising that no-one was about to step forwards, just carried on with the sorting.

Eventually, all the new students had been sorted and Professor McGonagall had rolled up the parchment, picked up both the stool and hat and had made her way back to the staff table, depositing the hat and stool behind it. After a few minutes of everyone staring at him expectantly, Albus Dumbledore stood up sombrely, looking as if someone had stolen his sherbert lemons (something not far from the truth since his bowl that gave him free sherbert lessons was taken back and he wouldn't bring himself as low as to buy some more), and spoke to the hall, magic lacing his voice so everyone could hear clearly. **"Welcome," he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts!** Enjoy the feast." And with that, promptly sat down as food began appearing on the platters on the tables. While all the first years looked at the food in shock, the majority of the older years and staff were sitting in confusion; the Headmaster had always said something completely stupid and insane before the feast, and he looked crazily happy during it as well. Tonight for some reason he neglected from his usual routine; though a few of the staff members and some of the smarter Slytherins and Ravenclaws suspected it was due to the Potter heir being revealed to be female, rather than the male he assured everyone he was.

At the Gryffindor table, Kearia was only half paying attention to the conversations going on around her as she ate. She mostly focussed her half attention on Hermione as she spoke to a prefect, a Weasley judging by his hair colour, about their classes; though at one point Seamus Finnagan caught her attention,

**"I'm half and half, mam's a witch, dad's a Muggle. She didn't tell him she was a witch till after they were married; bit of a nasty shock for him when he found out!"**

Internally she cringed; Seamus and his mum were lucky that the dad/husband took it so well as Muggles for famous for persecuting things they deemed as 'abnormal to them'. Finishing her meal she swept her eyes around the hall, noticing that apart from a couple of 'pigs in human skin', everyone else had finished as well. Looking to the staff table she saw the Headmasters eyes on her, unseen to everyone else, and she briefly caught a calculating gleam in his eyes before he stood up catching everyones' attention, obviously in a better mood.

**"Ahem — just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.**

**"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins. "I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.**

**"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.**

**"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."**

While a few students laughed, obviously not believing him and thinking that this was his 'crazy speak', Kearia frowned as she felt the stirring of her magic as she recognised the headmaster's wording for a magical contract. It wasn't long before she deciphered the meaning and her frown deepened; it sounded like he was going ahead with his previous attempts and plans to manipulate her as this seemed far too organised and thought out to have been thought up since she sent her reply to the Hogwarts letter come kidnapping attempt during the Summer.

**"He's not serious?" **Hermione** muttered to Percy worriedly.**

**"Must be," said Percy, frowning at Dumbledore. "It's odd, because he usually gives us a reason why we're not allowed to go somewhere — the forest's full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us prefects, at least."**

**"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cried Dumbledore. Kearia noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed. **One teacher with pale skinned and cold; black eyes, sitting on the Headmasters left, openly glared at him.

**Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.**

**"Everyone pick their favourite tune," said Dumbledore, "and off we go!"**

**And the school bellowed:**

**"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,  
><strong>**Teach us something please,  
><strong>**Whether we be old and bald  
><strong>**Or young with scabby knees,  
><strong>**Our heads could do with filling  
><strong>**With some interesting stuff,  
><strong>**For now they're bare and full of air,  
><strong>**Dead flies and bits of fluff,  
><strong>**So teach us things worth knowing,  
><strong>**Bring back what we've forgot,  
><strong>**just do your best, we'll do the rest,  
><strong>**And learn until our brains all rot."**

**Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.**

**"Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"**

The Gryffindor first years all followed Percy as he led them up some stairs, down others and through different tapestries and portraits. From Kearia's newly gained connection to the castle she could tell that the route Percy was taking them was overly complicated and long; it would be a miracle if none of the first years got lost tomorrow morning. At one T-junction he stopped dead, holding his arms out to stop the students as a ghost floated past, focusing intently on a box he was somehow able to hold.

"Peeves, a Poltergeist," Percy announced shortly after the ghost had floated away, "it's best to avoid him whenever possible; only the Bloody Baron can control him, he won't even listen to us Prefects."

Another ten minutes of of following a maze's path, one corridor full of portraits that Kearia was sure she recognised the frames from half an hour earlier, Percy stopped in front of a larger than normal portrait containing an over weight lady in a pink dress, holding a wine glass and sitting in a setting that was typical of the wealthy Romans during Emperor Caesar's reign.

"This is the 'Fat Lady', the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room."

"Password dears," the portrait said in a loud, snobbish tone; obviously a wealthy noble from some era.

"Caput Draconis," he said loud enough for the first years to hear, "the common room is protected by a password, it changes bi-weekly so make sure you check the notice board every two Saturdays. Make sure you don't reveal the password to the other houses." With that, he walked through the doorway revealed by the portrait swinging open, followed by the first years who had to clamber up the ledge; some needing help from those behind and before. By the time everyone had made it into the common room most of them were just about dead on their feet and running on fumes.

"Boys are on the left, girls on the right. As first years your dormitory will be on the first floor, next year as second years it will be on the second floor and so on." Percy told them before he walked up the boys staircase, causing the group to disperse as they went up their respective staircases. Kearia, being last in the group of girls, watched on in amusement as the four other girls she was sharing a dorm with stumbled half asleep to the beds with their respective trunks, dug out their sleeping attire and clambered into bed, closing the curtains. Kearia just sat on her bed as clothes were pushed out from the curtains and there was a chorus of "Goodnight". Five minutes later Kearia, satisfied the others were fast asleep, took the shrunken green trunk from out her pocket and placed it on her bed. Pointing her wand at the trunk, she traced a circle in an anti-clockwise motion and muttered **"Engorgio"**. When the trunk had regained its normal size she opened the first compartment, the only one currently unlocked, and walked down the stairs. As she touched the third drawer, she smiled in satisfaction as the lock clicked open after the magic had finished scanning her, revealing a single memory sphere when she opened the drawer, immediately she picked it up and pushed magic into her hands to activate it; appearing in the same lavish living room that she always did, accompanied by the smiling form of her mother as they embraced in a 'welcome back' hug.

* * *

><p>Trelawney giggled in happiness as she inhaled the smoke from her 'special future vision tube', or to anyone else: a bong. As soon as the feast had let out, Dumbledore had dismissed the staff and rushed off; thereby cancelling the customary 'start of term staff meeting'. So high that she was, she completely missed the sight of a beetle turning into a woman, who then wnet about documenting everything in order to showcase Dumbledore in an even worse light than he would soon be for her new client. She was shocked though when Trelawney stopped mid-giggle and with her eyes wide and vacant, spoke and a slow, ominous voice.<p>

"The Grey Queen has arrived, born to light and dark she will be neither; but use both to return true balance to the world. Marked by the swirl of 'Dalbergia latifolia and Taxus' she will take the Wizarding world by storm as she destroys the bigotry and corruption between magicals. Work with her to ensure your place in the world but be warned those who try to use her; she will not be controlled and will destroy everything you have. The grey queen has arrived."

When she had finished, Trelawney simply carried on giggling. Rita however had been writing rappidly so she could get it all down, before she transformed and flew out the window; inwardly thanking the heavens for air purifying charms.

* * *

><p>So like it? Hate it? Reviews and constructive critism are always welcome but like always, pointless flames will be ignored. Also, thanks to everyone who reviewed andor added this fic and/or me to their favourites and/or alert list.


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